Dont ask how this works but currently it does ("^\|(.?)\|*$")....kinda. This removes all extra pipes...part one....I have searched all over no anwser yet. I am using VB2011 beta...asp web form......vb coding though! I want to capture special character pipe (|) which is used to seperate words...i.e. car|truck|van|cycle problem is users lead with, trail with, use multiple, and use spaces before and after...i.e. |||car||truck | van || cycle. another example: george bush|micheal jordon|bill gates|steve jobs <-- this would be correct but when I do remove space it takes correct space out. so I want to get rid of whitespace leading, trailing, any space before | and space after | and only allow one pipe (|)....in between alphanumeric of course.