regexp help

[Ravenous]

I'm trying to match a string that begins with a character, is followed by any number of alphanumerics, but DOESN'T end with OP or PAREN.

I've got the first part but I cannot seem to exclude strings that end in OP and PAREN.

Can someone help me out here? Thanks.

[dalecosp]

Why not verify the string twice? If it ends with the no-no strings; it's invalid. If it passes that check, use a regexp to make sure it meets your other criteria.

You oughtta be able to check the first part with [man]strtok[/man] or something similar.....