Well, that's a solution, and when we (the programers) don't have other choice
or a more elegant solution then to do what ever to solve the problem.
Have you looked for other non visible char? with charmap you can look for one.
Or tried with Upper and Lower Case words? you can hide this by converting with upper and lower in reports and forms, and setting collating to machine.

Have a nice day (or night?)

Mauricio