CFSelect not binding but text box is

Question

I am using CF10. I have a Select:

<cfselect name="company" id="company" query="qcompany" display="placename" value="placeid" queryposition="below">
                <option value="0">--Select--
</cfselect>

I have another cfselect that is bound to the first:

<cfselect  name="People" bind="cfc:schedule.GetPeopleArray({company})" ></cfselect>

I cannot get the second cfselect to display any results. To test whether or not I am receiving data from my component (which I will display at the bottom), I bound a text box:

 <cfinput name="test" bind="cfc:schedule.GetPeopleArray({company})" bindonload="false"/>

This text box is displaying the results of the call to my component every time, but the cfselect never displays anything.

What could I possibly be doing wrong?

I have tried returning arrays and queries from my component. No help. I have tried adding display and value attributes to the second cfselect. No help.

Here is my component:

<cfcomponent output="false">
<cffunction name="GetPeopleArray" access="remote" returnType="array" output="false">
    <cfargument name="company" type="string" >

    <!--- Define variables --->
    <cfset var data="">
    <cfset var result=ArrayNew(2)>
    <cfset var i=0>

    <cfquery name="qEmployee" datasource="texas" >
        SELECT 0 as personid,'Select Person' as fullname,0 as sortorder
        UNION
        SELECT p.personid ,concat(firstname,' ',lastname) as fullname,3 as sortorder
        FROM person p
        INNER JOIN placeperson pp
        ON p.personid=pp.personid
        where personstatus='ACT'
        and pp.placeid=#arguments.company#
        order by sortorder,fullname
    </cfquery>

    <!--- Convert results to array --->
    <cfloop index="i" from="1" to="#qEmployee.RecordCount#">
        <cfset result[i][1]=qEmployee.personid[i]>
        <cfset result[i][2]=qEmployee.fullname[i]>
    </cfloop>

    <!--- And return it --->
    <cfreturn result>
</cffunction>   
 </cfcomponent>

Answer 1

Ultimately, you may want use jQuery anyway, but FWIW your existing code worked fine with CF10. (The only change was removing the JOIN for simplicity) So either you are using different code, or there is something else going on we are unaware of ..

Truthfully the Ajax functionality does have some "quirks". However, you should not have any problem with a simple case like this. Aside from adding a text field, what other debugging or troubleshooting steps did you perform? What I usually recommend is:

• Test the CFC independently first. Access it directly in your browser with a variety of sample values:

  http://localhost/path/to/schedule.cfc?method=GetPeopleArray&company=someValue

  I did this with the original code and discovered an error occurred when the company value is not numeric, like an empty string. (I suspect that might have been the problem) You can prevent that error by substituting an invalid ID like 0 instead. Note, be sure to use cfqueryparam to prevent sql injection.

    AND  pp.placeid = <cfqueryparam value="#val(arguments.company)#" 
                              cfsqltype="cf_sql_integer">
  

• Enable the CF AJAX debugger in the CF Administrator. Then append ?cfdebug to your test script so you can view the console and check for problems/errors.

  http://localhost/path/to/yourTestForm.cfm?cfdebug

  Again, I did this after tweaking the query. But there were no errors. Your existing cfform code worked perfectly.

Usually those two steps are enough to pinpoint any problems. If not, make sure your Application.cfc file (if you are using one) is not interfering with the Ajax request. That is a common gotcha. Test the code in a separate directory that is outside any Application files.

EDIT: Also, you may as well set bindonload="false" for the select list too. Since you do not want to call the function when the page first loads. Only when the user selects something from the list.