sorry about that and thanks for your response Franklin52.

i have a script that has this syntax: script <group_id> <user_name> <regex>

rules:
* the user can enter single or multiple group_ids and/or user_names
* the regex is optional
* group_ids are 5-digit integers
* user_names are can be a combo of chars and integers


because the regex parameter is optional, i want to check if it was added at the command line. further, if the regex was actually added, then i want to use that regex value against a different script that i created:

if any parameter begins with a special character; then
  run a different script with the regex parameter
else
  do something else
fi

if [ "$*" begins with any of these '[][\\.*$^]/\\&' ]
  ./script2 regex
else
  do something else
fi