User Guide

Storing Complex Data in a String 353

Storing Complex Data in a String

The following simple example uses WDDX to store complex data, a data structure

that contains arrays as a string in a Client variable. It uses the

cfdump tag to display

the contents of the structure before serialization and after deserialization. It uses the

HTMLEditFormat function in a cfoutput tag to display the contents of the Client

variable. The

HTMLEditFormat function is required to prevent the browser from

trying to interpret (and throwing away) the XML tags in the variable.

relatives = structNew();

relatives.father = "Bob";

relatives.mother = "Mary";

relatives.sisters = arrayNew(1);

arrayAppend(relatives.sisters, "Joan");

relatives.brothers = arrayNew(1);

arrayAppend(relatives.brothers, "Tom");

arrayAppend(relatives.brothers, "Jesse");

</cfscript>

A dump of the original relatives structure:

<!--- Convert data structure to string form and save it in the

client scope --->

<cfwddx action="cfml2wddx" input="#relatives#"

output="Client.wddxRelatives">

The contents of the Client.wddxRelatives variable:

<cfoutput>#HtmlEditFormat(Client.wddxRelatives)#</cfoutput>

<cfwddx action="wddx2cfml" input="#Client.wddxRelatives#"

output="sameRelatives">

A dump of the sameRelatives structure

generated from client.wddxRelatives