title: Search and replace serialized object in phpMyAdmin
body: <p>I need to erase a specific meta value for a specific meta key. The table is <code>post_meta</code>. The meta key is <code>awards</code>. And the meta_value I want to search and replace (erase) is: </p>
  
  <pre><code>a:1:{i:0;s:0:"";}
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>This value should be blank, instead of containing that empty serialized array.</p>
  
  <p>I tried to use this query:</p>
  
  <pre><code>update wp_postmeta 
     set meta_value = replace(meta_value,'a:1:{i:0;s:0:"";}','')
   where meta_key = 'awards'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>But I get this error:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near ''a:1:{i:0)' at line 1</p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>I assume the error is because the text I'm searching for includes quotation marks and symbols. How can I formulate the query properly?</p>
  
  <p>Thank you! </p>
  
  <p>EDIT to add context if needed: I imported 10,000 posts to the database using a CSV. All worked fine except this object/array <code>a:1:{i:0;s:0:"";}</code> was imported as the meta_value when no value existed for this particular meta_key. I need this value to be empty, so now I want to erase this value from the database wherever it appears.  </p>