ToString |
Description
Converts a value to a string.
Returns
A string.
Category
Conversion functions, Other functions, String functions
Function syntax

    ToString(any_value[, encoding])

See also
ToBase64, ToBinary
History

ColdFusion MX:

- Changed Unicode support: ColdFusion supports the Java UCS-2 representation of Unicode character values 0-65535. (ColdFusion 5 and earlier releases supported ASCII values 1-255.)
- Added the encoding attribute.

Parameters

Parameter | Description
any_value | Value to convert to a string
encoding | The character encoding (character set) of the string. The following list includes
| commonly used values::
| utf-8
| iso-8859-1
| windows-1252
| us-ascii
| shift_jis
| iso-2022-jp
| euc-jp
| euc-kr
| big5
| euc-cn
| utf-16
| For more information on character encodings, see:
| www.w3.org/International/O-charset.html.
| Default: the encoding of the page on which the function is called. See cfcontent
| on page 92.

Usage

This function can convert simple values and binary values that do not contain Byte zero. If this function cannot convert a value, it throws an exception. This function can convert an XML document object to a string representation.

Note: | You can use this function to reverse Base64 encoding of a string. Convert the Base64 encoded object to a binary object, then use this function to convert the binary object to a string.

Example

    <h3>ToString Example</h3>
    <!---- Initialize data. ------>
    <cfset charData = "">
    <!----- Create string of ASCII characters (32-255) and concatenate them. ---->
    <cfloop index = "data" from = "32" to = "255">
       <cfset ch = chr(data)>
       <cfset charData = charData & ch>
    </cfloop>
    <p>The following string is the concatenation of characters (32 to 255)
    from the ASCII table.<br>
    <cfoutput>#charData#</cfoutput></p>

    <!------ Create a Base64 representation of this string. ---->
    <cfset data64 = toBase64(#charData#)>
    <p>
    The following string is the Base64 representation of the string.<br>
    <cfoutput>#data64#</cfoutput></p>
    <!---- Create a binary representation of Base64 data. --->
    <cfset dataBinary = toBinary(data64)>

    <!---- Create the string representation of the binary data. ----->
    <cfset dataString = ToString(dataBinary)>
    <p>The following is the string representation of the binary data.<br>
    <cfoutput>#dataString#</cfoutput></p>

any_value |
Value to convert to a string

encoding |

The character encoding (character set) of the string. The following list includes commonly used values:

- utf-8
- iso-8859-1
- windows-1252
- us-ascii
- shift_jis
- iso-2022-jp
- euc-jp
- euc-kr
- big5
- euc-cn
- utf-16

For more information on character encoding, see: http://www.w3.org/International/O-charset.html.
Default: the encoding of the page on which the function is called. See cfcontent.