title: MySQL, URL-encode varchar column
body: <p>We have a third party system that is pulling data from their server to web client. The server is connected to a MySQL database. Data is being transfered via JSON string. Apparently, one of the columns has characters that, when introduced into JSON string, break the format. My only recourse is to fix data in the column. I was thinking of URL encoding everything. Is there an easy way of doing this in MySQL? </p>
  
  <p>This is an educated guess about a behavior of a closed system. I will add another column to a data table (column_b). Then I will want to populate it with URL-encoded data from column_a. Something like this: UPDATE mytable set column_b = some_url_encode_function(column_a);</p>