URLDecode

Description

Decodes a URL-encoded string.

Returns

A copy of a string, decoded.

Category

Conversion functions, Other functions, String functions

Function syntax

URLDecode(urlEncodedString[, charset])

See also

URLEncodedFormat; Tags and functions for globalizing applications in the Developing ColdFusion Applications

ColdFusion MX 6.1: Changed the default charset: the default charset is the character encoding of the URL scope.

ColdFusion MX:

  • Changed Unicode support: ColdFusion supports the Java UCS-2 representation of Unicode character values 0–65535. (Earlier releases supported ASCII values.)

  • Added the charset parameter.

Parameters

Parameter

Description

urlEncodedString

URL-encoded string or a variable that contains one.

charset

The character encoding in which the URL is encoded. Optional.

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: www.w3.org/International/O-charset.html.

The default value is the character encoding of the URL scope.

Usage

URL encoding formats some characters with a percent sign and the two-character hexadecimal representation of the character. For example, a character whose code is 129 is encoded as %81. A space is encoded with a plus sign.

Query strings in HTTP are always URL-encoded.

Example

This example creates, encodes, and decodes a string that contains ASCII character codes:

<cfscript> 
    // Build string 
    s = ""; 
    for (c = 1; c lte 256; c = c + 1) 
    { 
        s = s & chr(c); 
    } 
    // Encode string and display result 
    enc = URLEncodedFormat(s); 
    WriteOutput("Encoded string is: '#enc#'.<br>"); 
    // Decode and compare result with original 
    dec = URLDecode(enc); 
    if (dec neq s) 
    { 
        WriteOutput("Decoded is not the same as encoded."); 
    } 
    else 
    { 
        WriteOutput("All's quiet on the Western front."); 
    } 
</cfscript>