Wie kann ich nicht-alphanumerische Zeichen effizient aus MySQL-Zeichenfolgen filtern?

UPDATE {table} SET {column} = REGEXP_REPLACE({column}, '[^0-9a-zÀ-ÿ ]', '')

DROP FUNCTION IF EXISTS alphanum; 
DELIMITER | 
CREATE FUNCTION alphanum( str CHAR(255) ) RETURNS CHAR(255) DETERMINISTIC
BEGIN 
  DECLARE i, len SMALLINT DEFAULT 1; 
  DECLARE ret CHAR(255) DEFAULT ''; 
  DECLARE c CHAR(1);
  IF str IS NOT NULL THEN 
    SET len = CHAR_LENGTH( str ); 
    REPEAT 
      BEGIN 
        SET c = MID( str, i, 1 ); 
        IF c REGEXP '[[:alnum:]]' THEN 
          SET ret=CONCAT(ret,c); 
        END IF; 
        SET i = i + 1; 
      END; 
    UNTIL i > len END REPEAT; 
  ELSE
    SET ret='';
  END IF;
  RETURN ret; 
END | 
DELIMITER ; 

select 'This works finally!', alphanum('This works finally!');

+---------------------+---------------------------------+
| This works finally! | alphanum('This works finally!') |
+---------------------+---------------------------------+
| This works finally! | Thisworksfinally                |
+---------------------+---------------------------------+