Hyphen within string in mysql query causing strange behavior

Question

In my Rails testing environment, I have a user_id that looks like 1234-567abc89. I'm getting inconsistent behaviour by querying this user in different tables. Most of the queries are working, but running one particular query fails:

ActiveRecord::StatementInvalid (Mysql::Error: Unknown column '1234' in 
'where clause': SELECT * FROM `point_allocations` WHERE (user_id = 1234-567abc89) ):

So for some reason, everything beyond the hyphen is getting cut off. I realized that for the queries that work, it is looking up user 1234 instead of 1234-567abc89, but if all the others work, any idea why only this one would return an error?

Solution

You need to include quotations.

SELECT * FROM `point_allocations` WHERE (user_id = '1234-567abc89')

Because the user_id column expects character-typed data, it will take your value (1234-567abc89) and parse it as an integer, truncating the content after the hyphen. If you include it in quotations, it will accept it as a string and transfer properly.

Enjoy and good luck!