Two different characters returning same code

[CMIIandExcel]

Hi all

I am a bit mythed by an issue I am having in Excel 2010.

I have two different characters displaying as - and ? but are both returning 63 from CODE().

I know the - should return 45.

Anyone got any ideas how this can be happening?

Thanks in advance for any assistance

Mike

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Background:

Somone was copy and pasting values from an excel workbook into a database search and the db was not returning any hits. when the - in the search criteria were removed and replaced with wildcards the search returned hits.

They then sent the number to me via office communicator (Copied and pasted below)
CRL1‐XRL‐Z3‐ADDSD‐CR001‐50147
Where it no longer displayed as a - but as a non printable character (empty square).
I then copied this back into excel and it again displayed as -.

I then used CODE() and CHAR() to try and see what was what.

Character	CODE()
-	45
?	63
-	63

<TBODY>
</TBODY>

The first row is a typed in -
The second row is a typed in ?
The last row is the - from the pasted value

 

[hippiehacker]

just try to Paste-Special as Text there is a problem with the HTML Format

 

[hippiehacker]

and btw its the same problem for all office versions at least from 2003 don't know earlier version.

 

[RoryA]

CODE only understands ASCII characters (ie. char(1) to char(255)) whereas what you are pasting from the internet may well include unicode characters.

 

[pgc01]

Hi

If you want to know the real code of the character, you must use vba.

For ex., to know the code of the 5th character in the cell A1, execute in the Immediate Window:

?AscW(Mid(Range("A1").Value,5,1))

 

[CMIIandExcel]

Thanks for the pointers, seems the original values which were put into the spreadsheet were taken from a pdf document.

Regards

Mike