
Contents > Developing ColdFusion MX Applications > Elements of CFML > Special characters

Special characters

The double quotation marks ("), single quotation mark ('), and pound sign (#) characters have special meaning to ColdFusion. To include any of them in a string, double the character; for example, use ## to represent a single # character.

The need to escape the single- and double-quotation marks is context-sensitive. Inside a double-quoted string, you do not need to escape single-quote (apostrophe) characters. Inside a single-quoted string, you do not escape double-quote characters.

The following example illustrates escaping special characters, including the use of mixed single and double quotes.

<cfset mystring = "We all said ""For He's a jolly good fellow.""">
<cfset mystring2 = 'Then we said "For She''s a jolly good fellow".'>
<cfoutput>
   #mystring#<br>
   #mystring2#<br>
   Here is a pound sign: ##
</cfoutput>

The output looks like this:

We all said "For He's a jolly good fellow."
Then we said "For She's a jolly good fellow."
Here is a pound sign: #


Contents > Developing ColdFusion MX Applications > Elements of CFML > Special characters

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