In ColdFusion, text values are stored in strings. You specify strings by enclosing them in either single- or double-quotation marks. For example, the following two strings are equivalent:

"This is a string"

'This is a string'

You can write an empty string in the following ways:

• "" (a pair of double-quotation marks with nothing in between)
• '' (a pair of single-quotation marks with nothing in between)

Strings can be any length, limited by the amount of available memory on the ColdFusion server. However, the default size limit for long text retrieval (CLOB) is 64K. The ColdFusion Administrator lets you increase the limit for database string transfers, but doing so can reduce server performance. To change the limit, select the Enable retrieval of long text option on the Advanced Settings page for the data source.

Escaping quotation marks and number signs

To include a single-quotation character in a string that is single-quoted, use two single-quotation marks (known as escaping the single-quotation mark). The following example uses escaped single-quotation marks:

<cfset myString='This is a single-quotation mark: '' This is a double-quotation mark: "'>
<cfoutput>#mystring#</cfoutput><br>

To include a double-quotation mark in a double-quoted string, use two double-quotation marks (known as escaping the double-quotation mark). The following example uses escaped double-quotation marks:

<cfset myString="This is a single-quotation mark: ' This is a double-quotation mark: """>
<cfoutput>#mystring#</cfoutput><br>

Because strings can be in either double-quotation marks or single-quotation marks, both of the preceding examples display the same text:

This is a single-quotation mark: ' This is a double-quotation mark: "

To insert a number sign (#) in a string, you must escape the number sign, as follows:

"This is a number sign ##"

Lists

ColdFusion includes functions that operate on lists, but it does not have a list data type. In ColdFusion, a list is just a string that consists of multiple entries separated by delimiter characters.

The default delimiter for lists is the comma. If you use any other character to separate list elements, you must specify the delimiter in the list function. You can also specify multiple delimiter characters. For example, you can tell ColdFusion to interpret a comma or a semicolon as a delimiter, as the following example shows:

<cfset MyList="1,2;3,4;5">
<cfoutput>
List length using ; and , as delimiters: #listlen(Mylist, ";,")#<br>
List length using only , as a delimiter: #listlen(Mylist)#<br>
</cfoutput>

This example displays the following output:

List length using ; and , as delimiters: 5

List length using only , as a delimiter: 3

Each delimiter must be a single character. For example, you cannot tell ColdFusion to require two hyphens in a row as a delimiter.

If a list has two delimiters in a row, ColdFusion ignores the empty element. For example, if MyList is "1,2,,3,,4,,,5" and the delimiter is the comma, the list has five elements and list functions treat it the same as "1,2,3,4,5".