Here is a small example of what I am trying to do...

--*********

declare @String varchar(300)

set @String = 'here is my phone number 1234567890. but my cell is 4444444444, and my work number is 5555555555. i said my my phone number 1234567890. and my cell is 4444444444, and my work number is 5555555555. '

select @String

While patindex('%1234[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]%',@String) > 0

BEGIN

Set @String = STUFF(@String,patindex('%1234[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]%',@String)+4,6,REPLICATE('x',6))

select @String

End

While patindex('%4444[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]%',@String) > 0

BEGIN

Set @String = STUFF(@String,patindex('%1234[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]%',@String)+6,6,REPLICATE('x',6))

select @String

End

select @String

--**********

i want to mask the phone number... but i also dont want to have the second while loop as there could be many occurances of area codes (eg. 1234, 4444), so i wanted to see if anyone knew how to do a pattern with a logical OR (OR |) in it, to remove the second While loop??

patindex('%1234|4444[0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9][0-9]%',@String)

Thanks for the other example, but thats not what I am looking for...