
Contents > CFML Reference > ColdFusion Functions > SetEncoding

SetEncoding

Sets the character encoding (character set) of Form and URL scope variable values; used when the character encoding of the input to a form, or the character encoding of a URL, is not in UTF-8 encoding.

None

International functions, System functions

SetEncoding(scope_name,charset)

GetEncoding, cfcontent, cfprocessingdirective, URLDecode, URLEncodedFormat

ColdFusion MX: Added this function.

Parameter	Description
scope_name	url form
charset	The character encoding in which text in the scope variables is encoded. 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

Parameter

Description

scope_name

url
form

charset

The character encoding in which text in the scope variables is encoded. 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

Use this function when the character encoding of the input to a form or the character encoding of a URL is not in UTF-8 encoding. For example, Traditional Chinese characters are often in Big5 encoding. Before using URL or Form variables, call this function (typically, in the Application.cfm page) to set the encoding and avoid interpreting the characters of the variables incorrectly.

For more information on character encoding, see the following web pages:

www.w3.org/International/O-charset.html provides general information on character encoding and the web, and has several useful links.
www.iana.org/assignments/character-sets is a complete list of character sets names used on the Internet, maintained by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority.
java.sun.com/j2se/1.4.1/docs/guide/intl/encoding.doc.html lists the character encoding that Java 1.4.1, and therefore the default ColdFusion configuration, can interpret. If you use a JVM that does not conform to the Sun Java 2 Platform, Standard Edition, v 1.4.1, the supported locales may differ. The list uses Java internal names, not the IANA character encoding names that you normally use in the SetEncoding charset parameter and other ColdFusion attributes and parameters. Java automatically converts standard IANA names to its internal names as needed.

<!--- This example sends and interprets the contents of two fields as
      big5 encoded text. Note that the form fields are received as URL variables
      because the form uses the GET method. --->
<cfcontent type="text/html; charset=big5">
<form action='#cgi.script_name#' method='get'>
<input name='xxx' type='text'>
<input name='yyy' type='text'>
<input type="Submit" value="Submit">
</form>

<cfif IsDefined("URL.xxx")>
<cfscript>
   SetEncoding("url", "big5"); 
   WriteOutput("URL.XXX is " & URL.xxx & "<br>"); 
   WriteOutput("URL.YYY is " & URL.yyy & "<br>");
    theEncoding = GetEncoding("URL");
    WriteOutput("The URL variables were decoded using '" &
theEncoding & "' encoding."); 
</cfscript>
</cfif>


Contents > CFML Reference > ColdFusion Functions > SetEncoding

Version 6.1

Comments are no longer accepted for ColdFusion MX 6.1. ColdFusion 8 is the current version.

Comments

No screen name said on Oct 14, 2005 at 7:36 AM :

WARNING: It seems that this will return the URL and FORM variables back to their original states from in the HTTP request. That means if there were any in-code changes to URL or FORM variables (like a CFPARAM) prior to the point this fucntion is called, those changes will be lost. This does not apply if there were no URL or FORM variables in the original HTTP request, in which case the in-code changes to those scopes will be safely retained.

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