how can I find type of characters?

Hi.
I am working on a program that works with words.
one of the variables can be filled by both english characters and arabic characters(the data base that I have to use has a mix of english and arabic words without any separation)!

for example

Code:

---

string a;
a="hello";
a="سلام";

---

is there any way to check if the variable has been filed with english characters or arabic characters?

thank you
arian

I found one way:
using of the asci code of 'a' and 'z'

Code:

---

string str;
if ( str.substring(0,1).to lower() < zAsciCode && str.substring(0,1).to lower()> aAscicode)
    it is an english word
else
    it is an arabic word

---

is there a better way?

I doubt that there is any much better way.

You can probably find out the range of arabic characters as well, so that if the string is neither arabic nor english, you can identify that this is the case.

--
Mats