Question

I have an excel file with numerous Non-ASCII characters which I would like to replace with the space character.

This text is to be entered into a MySQL database, and it will not import with these characters in the strings. I get a HY000 Incorrect string value when trying to post the row.

Answer 1

If the set of Non-Ascii characters is fixed you could use:

NewString := StringReplace(OriginalString,#1#4,' ',[rfReplaceAll])

where #1#4 is the non-ascii characters you want to have replaced.

Here is some docs on it’s use.

You could also do this.

function StripNonAlpha(aInput : String) : String;
var
 I : Integer;
begin
 result := aInput;
 for I := 1 to length(result) do
 begin
   if not CharInSet(result[I],['A'..'Z','a'..'z']) then
      result[I] := ' ';
 end;
end;

Then you can change Set in CharInSet to the acceptable characters.