Thanks for the reply. I didn't realize that I had inadvertently taken the period, hyphen, and underscore out of the expression but that is the case. And the + following the {} is just inexperience. My aim is to allow the above mentioned characters as part of the filename but just to NOT allow two of them consecutively. So, with that in mind, and to try to further my regex education, when you get some spare time, tell me how in the blue blazes do you keep two consecutive periods or hyphens or underscores out of the filename?