Issues with 'plus symbol' output in PSQL on update query Simple but frustrating issue... I'm trying to do an update command to correct a misspelling with this field:

grouper=&gt; select * from master_list WHERE group ~ 'JustAdopted';
       group       | activity | usefulness 
-------------------+----------+------------
 JustAdoptedAdvice+|          |           
                   |          | 
(1 row)


But postgres won't give me a straight answer on the field name... 

grouper=&gt; UPDATE master_list SET group = 'JustAdoptingAdvice' WHERE group = 'JustAdoptedAdvice';
UPDATE 0

grouper=&gt; UPDATE master_list SET group = 'JustAdoptingAdvice' WHERE group = 'JustAdoptedAdvice+';
UPDATE 0

grouper=&gt; select * from master_list WHERE group ~ '+';
ERROR:  invalid regular expression: quantifier operand invalid


What is going on with that field? Why is that plus symbol there and what does it represent?

And how do I reference it to change it, if the field won't update with or without the symbol being there?
This:

UPDATE master_list
SET group = 'JustAdoptingAdvice' 
WHERE group = 'JustAdoptedAdvice+';


should work perfectly fine if the field was really JustAdoptedAdvice+, but I don't think it is. psql is showing that + to mean continuation ... I suspect there's actually a newline there.

UPDATE master_list
SET group = 'JustAdoptingAdvice' 
WHERE group = E'JustAdoptedAdvice\n';


There could be whitespace after the newline too, so maybe even:

UPDATE master_list
SET group = 'JustAdoptingAdvice' 
WHERE group ~ 'JustAdoptedAdvice[[:blank:]\n]+';


which says "JustAdoptedAdvice followed by one or more of tab/space/newline".

Demo showing it's likely to be a newline:

regress=&gt; CREATE TABLE t4(x text);
CREATE TABLE
regress=&gt; INSERT INTO t4(x) VALUES (E'JustAdoptedAdvice\n');
INSERT 0 1
regress=&gt; SELECT * FROM t4;
         x         
-------------------
 JustAdoptedAdvice+

(1 row)


To be sure, look at the hex representation of the utf-8 encoding of the string:

regress=&gt; SELECT encode( convert_to(x, 'utf-8'), 'hex') FROM t4;
                encode                
--------------------------------------
 4a75737441646f707465644164766963650a
(1 row)


You'll see that it ends with 0x0a, which is a newline.