title: Selecting rows that contain Non-ASCII characters
body: <p>Here is the issue: I have imported about 20000 game descriptions from mochimedia into my database, but there are many foreign games, which I do not want to list.</p>
  
  <p>I came up with this query to find columns with non-ASCII characters</p>
  
  <pre><code>SELECT * FROM TABLE WHERE NOT HEX(COLUMN) REGEXP '^([0-7][0-9A-F])*$';
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Note that I found this solution here on stackoverflow as I am not an expert if it comes to mysql queries.</p>
  
  <p>However, while this query catches quiet a few foreign descriptions, it also seems to fail sometimes and finds perfectly fine descriptions, so what I am looking for is finetuning this query to skip the "okay" ones.</p>
  
  <p>Here are a few returned rows that are "okay", meaning they should not be returned:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Game Boy Jam game that uses game boy restrictions. It’s a western
    platform game, where you play as a sheriff of the town. Your mission
    is to capture all the bad bandits in the land and bring them to
    justice.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>and one more</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>It's hard to be a kitten if you have such a clumsy owner! Yesterday
    she lost a lot of things in the park and now it's up to you to find
    them!</p>
    
    <p>Memories of that day can be helpful – you should remember where have
    you seen that thing last and search there.Map also can be usefull for
    your task. And finally you can climb up a tree and ask a big cat for a
    hint – you will see all the events of that day again.</p>
    
    <p>But sometimes it's not enough to just find a lost thing. Some
    residents of the park may already be using it for themselves – be it
    mice or ants. In that case you may have to bring them something in
    exchange for a lost thing – only then you will get it back.</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>and one last example</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>Hungry honey bee is a unique fun game. It includes the fun of a
    platform game, puzzle game, adventure game, role playing game. In this
    fantasy game, one needs to make honey bee to collect all the flowers
    in order to win a match. As level progresses new challenges will be
    introduced with gradually toughness. Overall it’s a complete blend of
    fun which makes one stick with the game for hours. GOI: Rating 4.5 our
    of 5</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Please remember that I am not a mysql expert, so I can only guess what the issue is, and my guess is that some of the characters like the </p>
  
  <p>’ in It’s or the characters – and :</p>
  
  <p>might cause this.</p>
  
  <p>Maybe someone would be willing to share a optimized query to solve this problem? I spent quiet a few time with this but given the fact that I am still a newbie with php and absolutely not an expert with REGEXP and mysql queries, it would be nice to get some help here so I can improve my knowledge. Please do not assume that I will understand anything you say if you just throw it at me, so detailed help would be wonderful.</p>
  
  <p>Thanks for your time reading this.</p>