// general purpose function to see if an input value has been
// entered at all
function isEmpty(inputStr) {
  if (inputStr == null || inputStr == "") {
    return true;
  }
  return false;
}

function isEmail(str) {
  // are regular expressions supported?
  var supported = 0;
  if (window.RegExp) {
      var tempStr = "a";
      var tempReg = new RegExp(tempStr);
      if (tempReg.test(tempStr)) supported = 1;
  }
  if (!supported)
      return (str.indexOf(".")> 2) && (str.indexOf("@")> 0);
  var r1 = new RegExp("(@.*@)|(\\.\\.)|(@\\.)|(^\\.)");
  var r2 = new RegExp("^.+\\@(\\[?)[a-zA-Z0-9\\-\\.]+\\.([a-zA-Z]{2,3}|[0-9]{1,3})(\\]?)$");
  return (!r1.test(str) && r2.test(str));
}

function removeLeadingAndTrailingChar (inputString, removeChar) 
{
  var returnString = inputString;
  if (removeChar.length)
  {
	while(''+returnString.charAt(0)==removeChar)
    {
	  returnString=returnString.substring(1,returnString.length);
	}
	while(''+returnString.charAt(returnString.length-1)==removeChar)
	{
	  returnString=returnString.substring(0,returnString.length-1);
	}
  }
  return returnString;
}

function minLength(inputString, inputLength)
{
  return (inputString.length >= inputLength) ? true : false;
}  

function onlyNumbers(inputString)
{
  var searchForNumbers = /\D+\_+\W+\s+\S+/
  return searchForNumbers.test(inputString);
} 

function onlyCharacters(inputString)
{
  var searchForNumbers = /\d+/
  return (searchForNumbers.test(inputString)) ? false : true;
}