title: Hyphen vs Dash : Replace Dash with Hyphen
body: <p>Alright
  so we had a problem recently</p>
  
  <p>In reporting services some of the String Columns were appearing as gibberish Chinese characters. </p>
  
  <p>On further investigation we found it is the hyphen. Well that's what we though first. On further investigation we found it a dash (or en dash) . Basically the reason this has happened is people copy pasting values into this column from word which converts hyphens into dashes automatically.</p>
  
  <p>But if you look at the database they both look the same. Though on the application side you can see the difference.</p>
  
  <p>How do I replace the dash with a normal hyphen.</p>
  
  <p>If you copy the value in put it in SQL server. A hyphen is gray while a dash is black
  but they both look exactly the same (i.e not bigger or smaller). Problem is I can't write a REPLACE script then (they are the freakin same)</p>
  
  <p>REPLACE ('-' with '-')</p>
  
  <p>is there a way special characters like the dash can be identified in SQL server?</p>
  
  <p>SQL Server v 2005</p>