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.