Weird order problem (ignoring whitespaces?)

Hello,

I used to run a program on a box with postgres 7.1
There was data like:
'abc 234'
'abc 1234'

(not the extra blank before 234)

so after a select * from x order by field i got
'abc 234'
'abc 1234'

but since this program runs on a 7.3 postgres version
i get.

'abc 1234'
'abc 234'

it seems that postgres ignores the blank.

What can i do to get it work again?

Thanx,
Heiko Irrgang