Hi,
I have been trying to compare two columns of a data.frame for their identity, but strangely I'm getting FALSE for the exact string when evaluating from data.frame but evaluated as TRUE when compared separately.
I'm confused about this behaviour...!!!
There appears to be an invisible character at the front of the string in your first variable. That accounts for the FALSE and also may explain why copying and pasting it makes comparisons work.
At least that's what I found when I copied from your post.