User Guide

496 Chapter 3: ColdFusion Functions

BinaryEncode

Description

Converts binary data to a string.

Returns

An encoded string representing the binary data.

See also

BinaryDecode

, CharsetEncode, CharsetDecode

History

ColdFusion MX 7: Added this function.

Parameters

Usage

Binary objects and, in some cases, 8-bit characters, cannot be transported over many Internet

protocols, such as HTTP and SMTP, and might not be supported by some database systems. By

Binary encoding the data, you convert the data into a format that you can transfer over any

Internet protocol or store in a database as character data. To convert the data back to a binary

format, use the

BinaryDecode function.

Macromedia recommends that you use the

BinaryEncode function, and not the

ToBase64(binarydata) function, to convert binary data to Base64 data in all new applications.

This function provides a superset of the functionality of the

ToBase64(binarydata) function.

See the following pages for additional information on handling binary data:

• cffile for loading and reading binary data

• cfwddx for serializing and deserializing binary data

Parameter Description

binarydata A variable containing the binary data to encode.

encoding A string specifying the encoding method to use to represent the data; one of the

following:

• Hex: use the characters 0-9 and A-F to represent the hexadecimal value of each

byte; for example, 3A.

• UU: use the UNIX UUencode algorithm to convert the data.

• Base64: use the Base64 algorithm to convert the data, as specified by IETF

RFC 2045, at www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2045.txt.