Is there a way of quickly concatenating two full string patterns in a way that takes into account the boundaries? So for example: \A\d+\Z and \A[a-z]+\Z would give: \A\d+[a-z]+\Z ? Or is this a context sensitive situation where I'd have to parse and join it myself? If so, what is the best way to "tokenise" a pattern? Shak -- Posted via http://www.ruby-forum.com/.