Question

I have a string in a field in a MySQL table.

It is VARCHAR, the table encoding is utf8.

The content of the field is one two three

If I run select * from table where content like '%one two%'; the row is returned.
However, if I run update table set content = REPLACE(content, " ", "+;;"); then the result is one two+;;three.

So, what is that first “whitespace” character?

I’m using this table with a Ruby on Rails app. Ruby doesn’t recognize it as a whitespace character either. (e.g. if I split the string on ” “, it doesn’t split on the first space)

Any idea what’s going on?

Thanks.

Answer 1

It’s probably a non breaking space character (2 bytes in UTF8: 0xC2 0xA0). That is not a space, and comparing it with a space will yield false.

You can update your table like so:

UPDATE table SET column = REPLACE(column, ' ', ' ');

Note that you should make sure that the first ‘space’ is actually the character you want to replace.