Space sign not recognised?

[PeterBunde]

Please see cut-out of my screen. Why is "B " not found in "B "? The code

InStr(Left(comment_original, 2), "B ")

returns 1 for a lot of strings similar to the one that is being examined here, in my sheet.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B3thvJXzChxmWl9SS2RHN0p5U1k/view?usp=sharing

Thanks in advance.

 

[Joe4]

I cannot view files/images from my current location (those sites are blocked via corporate security policy).
However, can you post the rest of your pertinent code? It is important to see how "comment_original" is being set.
And can you just an example or two of data that is not working properly?
And where is the data coming from? Data that comes from the internet or other programs often has "special" characters in it, like non-breaking spaces which are not treated the same as the regular spaces we are used to.

 

[PeterBunde]

Data that comes from the internet or other programs often has "special" characters in it, like non-breaking spaces which are not treated the same as the regular spaces we are used to.

The data comes into my code via the REST API to Confluence cloud. So your suspicion is right

Do you have a list of signs that look like " " but aren't, and code that will return TRUE if the sign is one of them? Like:

Public Function is_this_a_space_of_any_kind(spacesign As String) As Boolean

Thank you for your help!!!

 

[Joe4]

What I typically do is to try to find out what kind of character we are dealing with. So find an example that is causing problems. Let's say that it is in cell A1, and is something like "B dog", and it is the second character. You can find out what that second character is with this formula:

=CODE(MID(A1,2,1))

Normal spaces will return a value of 32.

If yours is something different, look at an ASCII table and see what it is: http://www.asciitable.com/

A non-breaking space is ASCII character 160.

 

[PeterBunde]

What I typically do is to try to find out what kind of character we are dealing with. So find an example that is causing problems. Let's say that it is in cell A1, and is something like "B dog", and it is the second character. You can find out what that second character is with this formula:

=CODE(MID(A1,2,1))

Normal spaces will return a value of 32.

If yours is something different, look at an ASCII table and see what it is: http://www.asciitable.com/

A non-breaking space is ASCII character 160.

Thanks for great advise!

BW Peter

 

[Joe4]

So were you able to sort your problem with that information, or do you still need help in devising a solution?

 

[PeterBunde]

Yes, I had exactly the answer I needed; it was the text

Data that comes from the internet or other programs often has "special" characters in it

that just gave me the right idea. Thank you!

 

[Joe4]

You are welcome.