[data_hugger]

Hi, I am attempting to select the first alphanumeric sequence from a specific field in an oracle database that is greater then 3 charcters and does not contain a '/' as one of the characters.

This what I have so far.
SELECT SUBSTR(address,1,(INSTR(address,' ',1,1)-1)) "First Word"
FROM Foo;

This sucessfully grabs the first word, but it returns any first word bounded by white space.
So I get all the first words like:
Giles
SO
e/w
147

I would like to ignore anything smaller then 2 character and anything that contains a '/'.

Any advice.
Thanks in advance for your time!