search and replace codepoints

[Haines Brown]

I have frequently pasted hyphenated material into a large .bib file
which sometimes turns out to be a codepoint that LaTeX can't compile.

The typed or pasted hyphen that does not cause a problem looks like
this:

  character: - (displayed as -) (codepoint 45, #o55, #x2d)
  preferred charset: ascii (ASCII (ISO646 IRV))
  code point in charset: 0x2D
  category: .:Base, a:ASCII, l:Latin, r:Roman
  buffer code: #x2D
  file code: #x2D (encoded by coding system utf-8-unix)

The pasted hyphen that LaTeX can't compile looks like this:

  character: ­ (displayed as ­) (codepoint 173, #o255, #xad)
  preferred charset: unicode (Unicode (ISO10646))
  code point in charset: 0xAD
  category: b:Arabic, h:Korean, j:Japanese, l:Latin
  buffer code: #xC2 #xAD
  file code: #xC2 #xAD (encoded by coding system utf-8-unix)

How do I do a search/replace to replace instances of the latter with the
former? What values should I use? Why is the unicode character not
identified with the usual U+...?

Haines Brown