Getting The String Representation Of One ColdFusion XML Node

Posted September 20, 2007 at 3:27 PM

Tags: ColdFusion

I can't remember how this came up, but the other day I was talking to this girl about XML; it was a pretty engaging conversation, as you can probably well imagine. I was trying to explain the difference between a ColdFusion XML document object and an XML string when the question occurred to me - can you use ToString() to get a partial representation of an XML document object.

Traditionally, you can call ToString() on an entire ColdFusion XML document to get an XML string representation:

 Launch code in new window » Download code as text file »

  • #ToString( xmlDocumentObject )#

But, what about calling that on an individual XML node that is within the XML document. I gave it a go:

 Launch code in new window » Download code as text file »

  • <!--- Define our ColdFusion XML document object. --->
  • <cfxml variable="xmlGirls">
  •  
  • <girls>
  • <girl>
  • <name>Samantha</name>
  • <age>27</age>
  • <hair>Blonde</hair>
  • </girl>
  • <girl>
  • <name>Kim</name>
  • <age>32</age>
  • <hair>Brunette</hair>
  • </girl>
  • <girl>
  • <name>Cindi</name>
  • <age>25</age>
  • <hair>Black</hair>
  • </girl>
  • </girls>
  •  
  • </cfxml>
  •  
  •  
  • <!--- Get the third girl. --->
  • <cfset arrNodes = XmlSearch( xmlGirls, "//girl[ 3 ]" ) />
  •  
  • <!--- Get a pointer to the girl node. --->
  • <cfset xmlGirl = arrNodes[ 1 ] />
  •  
  • <!---
  • Output the string representation of JUST this node
  • taken from the XML document.
  • --->
  • #HtmlEditFormat(
  • ToString( xmlGirl )
  • )#

As you can see, we are calling ColdFusion's ToString() method on only the third girl element node in the XML document. Running this gives us the following output:

 Launch code in new window » Download code as text file »

  • <?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
  • <girl>
  • <name>Cindi</name>
  • <age>25</age>
  • <hair>Black</hair>
  • </girl>

Pretty cool! Not only did it give us the string representation of the single XML node, it also gave us the XML document type.

NOTE: I modified the tabbing of the outputted string for easier reading.

Download Code Snippet ZIP File

Post Comment  |  Ask Ben  |  Permalink  |  Other Searches  |  Print Page



Learning ColdFusion 9 - ColdFusion 9 tutorials, samples, examples, demos

Reader Comments

Sammy Larbi
Sep 20, 2007 at 4:23 PM // reply »
76 Comments
1 Points

Definitely did not know you could do that. Cool, and thanks for pointing it out!


Ben Nadel
Sep 20, 2007 at 4:41 PM // reply »
6,516 Comments
25,763 Points

No worries. Been doing a lot of XML learning lately.


Bahamut
Apr 21, 2008 at 3:09 AM // reply »
2 Comments
1 Points

Great tips, thanks for it.


Nat Dunn
Oct 15, 2008 at 4:34 PM // reply »
3 Comments
1 Points

Hi Ben, do you know of an easy way to strip the XML declaration or to get the string representation without the XML declaration?


Nat Dunn
Oct 15, 2008 at 4:50 PM // reply »
3 Comments
1 Points

I did this:

<cfset xmlString = ToString(xmlNode)>
<cfif xmlString contains "<?xml">
<cfset xmlString=ListDeleteAt(xmlString ,1,">")>
<cfset xmlString=Right(xmlString ,Len(xmlString )-1)>
</cfif>

It's ugly, but it seems to do the trick.


Ben Nadel
Oct 15, 2008 at 5:24 PM // reply »
6,516 Comments
25,763 Points

@Nat,

You can use a regular expression (regEx) to remove the declaration:

XmlString = REReplace( XmlString, "<\?xml[^>]*>", "", "one" )


Nat Dunn
Oct 15, 2008 at 7:18 PM // reply »
3 Comments
1 Points

That's a good solution. Thanks.


Post Comment  |  Ask Ben

Recent Blog Comments
<scriptalert('just a test buddy :)')script
Nov 21, 2009 at 12:41 AM
Ask Ben: Building An AJAX, jQuery, And ColdFusion Powered Application
13311qseqweqwe ... read »
Budd Wright
Nov 20, 2009 at 11:32 PM
Five Months Without Hungarian Notation And I'm Loving It
I've used headless camel case for years for not only ColdFusion variables, but also SQL tables and fields... pretty much everything involving code. I also subscribe to the "don't abbreviate and clea ... read »
Ben Nadel
Nov 20, 2009 at 11:00 PM
Five Months Without Hungarian Notation And I'm Loving It
@Marcel, Yeah, I always err on the side of longer but more readable variable names. As for the camel casing of CF methods and the headless camel casing of custom items, I get around this by always ... read »
Marcel
Nov 20, 2009 at 10:56 PM
Five Months Without Hungarian Notation And I'm Loving It
I use the following and love it: my.namespace.MyComponents.functionMethodsOrUDF() CONSTANT_VALUES_OR_PROPERTIES One thing I always try is to CamelCaseBuiltInColdFusionFunctions() so others can tell ... read »
Darren
Nov 20, 2009 at 5:38 PM
Learning ColdFusion 8: CFImage Part I - Reading And Writing Images
Hi Ben, Great article. I've been looking around to see if ColdFusion image engine can programatically create the following "wrap around" effect: http://www.creativepro.com/article/photoshop-s-she ... read »
Todd Rafferty
Nov 20, 2009 at 5:35 PM
Maintaining ColdFusion Sessions Across SMS Text Message Requests Without Cookies
@Dave: I talked to Gert he suggested: <cfhttp method="get" url="http://{some cf website}" result="stuff" addtoken="yes" /> Note the addition of cfhttp attribute addtoken. That should persist y ... read »
Ben Nadel
Nov 20, 2009 at 5:23 PM
Maintaining ColdFusion Sessions Across SMS Text Message Requests Without Cookies
@Todd, Ahh, gotcha, yeah that makes sense. ... read »
Todd Rafferty
Nov 20, 2009 at 5:17 PM
Maintaining ColdFusion Sessions Across SMS Text Message Requests Without Cookies
Ben, sorry if I didn't make this clear. You can make it work like that if you want, just put <cfset session.foo = 1> (and <cfset application.foo = 1>) in your OnRequestStart() and it reve ... read »