How to clean non-UTF8 chars from database or CSV file

[nes49]

Okay, this isn’t a problem specific to The Events Calendar, but …
On the page to import a CSV file of events created outside of The Events Calendar, it says to be careful that the import file is UTF8 and gives a link to a tool to check that. The tool says everything’s fine, but there are some garbage characters (versions of “fancy” quotes, em/en dashes, etc.) in the file. I’ve been searching for tutorials and examples on how to clean those up, but I haven’t found anything that matches my specific case. [For instance, od tells me there’s a 240 in the post_content column for a particular post, but I can’t seem to run a SELECT that will find that record, so I’ve no idea how to craft the UPDATE to fix it.]
So I thought I’d post here in case someone has a good tutorial. (Because yes, importing posts with that kind of bad data does cause The Events Calendar to fail in odd ways.)

[I’m using an export file created from data that another events plugin created, so I could fix the data before the export. A solution to that would be preferable since the problem occurs in non-event posts. But if there’s a solution for the CSV file, that’d be a help.]

[Brian]

Hi,

Thanks for using our plugin. I looked around and we do not have anything to help you for this. I will keep this thread open though if someone sees it and has a solution they maybe to post here.

Thanks

[Brian]

Since there is has not been any activity on this thread for over 2 weeks so I am now closing it. Feel free to start a new thread if you have further issues. Thanks! 🙂

[Leah]

Hello!

I’m happy to report that we have been working on this feature for our upcoming 4.2 release. The new features for each of our plugins are currently being tested by our QA team and by our beta testers. Soon we’ll be putting the finishing touches on the code and then shipping the new versions out to our lovely customers.

Thank you for your patience while we worked on this. We appreciate your support! Keep an eye out for version 4.2 coming your way in the coming weeks.

Cheers,
Leah
and The Events Calendar team

[Geoff]

Hey there! I want to reach out to let you know that we did just ship this feature in 4.2 this week. Please check out the latest version when you have a change (and do check out the release notes for more important info on updating) and thanks for you support while we worked on this.

Cheers and have a great weekend!
Geoff

[Author]

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