Question

What is the quickest way in ColdFusion (or Java) for converting a string as such:

Input:
79827349837493827498

Output:
\79\82\73\49\83\74\93\82\74\98

I’m taking an LDAP GUID and escaping it for a query.

I can do it as a series of MID reductions like this:

  <CFSET V1 = "">
  <CFSET RetVal = "">
  <CFLOOP CONDITION="#V1# NEQ''">
      <CFSET RetVal = RetVal & "\" & MID(V1,1,2)>
      <CFSET V1 = MID(V1,3,2000)>
  </CFLOOP>

But it seems like there would be something more elegant, like a regular expression replace.

Answer 1

I haven’t tested this, so the syntax might be off, but you should be able to do something like:

<cfset V1 = REReplace(V1,"([0-9]{2})","\\\1","all")>