Sorry about not giving code. I did finally get it to work, but here is what I had to do: card_num = "123456789" c = 0 char = card_num[i..i].to_i before I had: char = card_num[i].to_i All I wanted to do was to pick out a single character (a digit) from that string and perform some calculations on it. But by just saying [i] I got a 57 value when I wanted the 9 value. When I said [i..i] I got the 9 value. Thanks for all your help, ~S -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.