sub-string of string containing '('

[Arindam Chakraborty <arch@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

hello ferreters,
	I wanted to get the initial (or final) longitude of a
variable using
def sym loni = `var_name,r=xstart`
which results in a string of the kind
68.906E(68.90625)

How do I extract the longitude value from here? I tried using
ppl set str1 $element(1,"(",loni)
which results in an error like this:
 **ERROR: command syntax: unpaired quotation marks, grave accent or
brackets

How do I get rid of this?
Many thanks in advance.

Arindam
------------------------------------------
 ARINDAM CHAKRABORTY
 Centre for Atmospheric & Oceanic Sciences
 Indian Institute of Science
 Bangalore 560 012; INDIA
 Tel: 091-080-3942505, 091-080-3600450
 Fax: 091-080-3600865
__________________________________________