Problem: Using ColdFusion's integration with .Net you can use 'System.IO.File' to read in a file and get back the byte array of the file, however it is not a a byte array that you'd expect i.e. a binary object. It is actually translated to an CF Array. This makes it difficult to use CF to deal with .Net byte arrays.
Solution: However you can use .Net's 'System.Convert' to convert it to a Base64 string, something CF can deal with.
See code below:
1<cfsetting showdebugoutput="false">
2
3<!--- The file to read --->
4<cfset FilePath = "C:\Projects\...\AnImage.jpg">
5
6<!--- Read the file using .Net, returns a byte array. --->
7<cfset objFile = CreateObject("dotnet","System.IO.File")>
8<cfset binaryFileDN = objFile.ReadAllBytes(FilePath)>
9
10<!--- Read[binary] the same file using cffile. --->
11<cffile action="readbinary" file="#FilePath#" variable="binaryFileCF">
12
13<!--- Show the 'lengths' of both objects. --->
14<cfoutput>
15CF binary length: #ArrayLen(binaryFileCF)#<br />
16.Net binary length: #ArrayLen(binaryFileDN)#<br /><br />
17</cfoutput>
18
19<!--- Show the dumps of each object. --->
20<cfdump var="#binaryFileCF#" label="CF"><br />
21<cfdump var="#binaryFileDN#" top="10" label=".Net"><br />
22
23<!--- Take the .Net byte array and convert it to a Base64 string. --->
24<cfset Convert = CreateObject("dotnet","System.Convert")>
25<cfset BodyBase64 = Convert.ToBase64String(binaryFileDN)>
26<cfset newBinaryFileDN = BinaryDecode(BodyBase64, "base64")>
27
28<cfdump var="#newBinaryFileDN#" label=".Net">
2
3<!--- The file to read --->
4<cfset FilePath = "C:\Projects\...\AnImage.jpg">
5
6<!--- Read the file using .Net, returns a byte array. --->
7<cfset objFile = CreateObject("dotnet","System.IO.File")>
8<cfset binaryFileDN = objFile.ReadAllBytes(FilePath)>
9
10<!--- Read[binary] the same file using cffile. --->
11<cffile action="readbinary" file="#FilePath#" variable="binaryFileCF">
12
13<!--- Show the 'lengths' of both objects. --->
14<cfoutput>
15CF binary length: #ArrayLen(binaryFileCF)#<br />
16.Net binary length: #ArrayLen(binaryFileDN)#<br /><br />
17</cfoutput>
18
19<!--- Show the dumps of each object. --->
20<cfdump var="#binaryFileCF#" label="CF"><br />
21<cfdump var="#binaryFileDN#" top="10" label=".Net"><br />
22
23<!--- Take the .Net byte array and convert it to a Base64 string. --->
24<cfset Convert = CreateObject("dotnet","System.Convert")>
25<cfset BodyBase64 = Convert.ToBase64String(binaryFileDN)>
26<cfset newBinaryFileDN = BinaryDecode(BodyBase64, "base64")>
27
28<cfdump var="#newBinaryFileDN#" label=".Net">
The result looks something like this:
Of course this is not limited to just reading binary files, anything that .Net returns as a byte array (e.g. 'System.Net.WebClient' DownloadData()) and consequently gets translated by Java/ColdFusion as an 'Array' can be treated the same way.