This post originated from an RSS feed registered with Java Buzz by Alan Williamson. Original Post: CFML Tip; Passing large text around in hidden form variables Feed Title: Technical @ alan.blog-city.com Feed URL: http://www.ibm.com/us/en/ Feed Description: (Technical) the rants of a java developer trapped in the body of a java developer! Latest Java Buzz Posts Latest Java Buzz Posts by Alan Williamson Latest Posts From Technical @ alan.blog-city.com

Sometimes it is necessary to pass large blocks of text around in hidden input forms.  For example if you are developing a wizard type input or maybe you are passing data on through.  Complications arise when you need to pass blocks of text that may contain carriage returns, or weird characters that may through your form variable.

In CFML you can easily get around all this nasty encoding and decoding complications by Base64 encoding your text while inserting it into your hidden form variable.  For example:

<input type="hidden" name="hidden_body" value="#ToBase64(body)#">

It will be encoded as one long line of characters.  You can decode this at the other side of the page submission by unwrapping:

<cfset body = ToString( ToBinary( form.hidden_body ) )>

No more complicated search and replaces.