CODEWITHSUNDEEP
coldfusionconditional-statementscoldfusion-2016cfloop
Brandon Heinrich
Brandon Heinrich

Reputation: 21

Coldfusion Complex Construct

I am trying to construct a coldfusion conditional statement that looks for incremental form ID checkboxes to have been selected. All checkboxes are defined as Component[component number]. I have established a loop that is looking for a URL variable that is different for every form that calls on the condition as seen below. The issue I am having is that I recieve an error when executing that tells me "Complex constructs are not supported with function parameterexists."

Clearly it has to do with the dynamic nature of the parameterexists statement, but I do not fully know what this means. Can anyone explain this and also offer a solution? I am fairly new to coldfusion and coding, so take it easy on me.

<cfloop from="1" to="#URL.loopcounter#" index="loopvar">

<cfif parameterexists(Form.Component#loopvar#)>

    INSERT INTO Results (MP_Barcode, Reworked, Reworked_By)
    VALUES ('#Form.MontaplastBarcode#', 'YES', '#URL.BadgeNumber#')

</cfloop>

    <cfoutput>
        <p class="success">YOUR REWORK HAS BEEN SUBMITTED SUCCESSFULLY.</p>
    </cfoutput>
<cfelse>
        <p class="error">NO REWORK WAS SUBMITTED. NO COMPONENTS SELECTED.</p>
</cfif>

Depending on the form that calls on this action, the URL loopcounter variable could range from 1 to 50.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 185

Answers (2)

Jules
Jules

Reputation: 2019

In your form, name your checkboxes simpler. Like reworked01 through reworked50.

On the action page use cfparam to default them to zero (since html forms don't post unchecked boxes):

<cfloop from="1" to="#url.loopCounter#" index="i">
    <cfparam name="form.reworked#numberFormat(i, 00)#" default="0">
</cfloop>

Then instead of fumbling with whether or not a variable exists, you can instead look for the value:

<cfloop from="1" to="#url.loopCounter#" index="i">
    <cfif evaluate("form.reworked"&i) eq 1>
        <!--- some logic here --->
    <cfelse>
        <!--- some other logic here --->
    </cfif>
</cfloop>

Upvotes: -1

Shawn
Shawn

Reputation: 4786

To answer the question, there are several ColdFusion functions that won't allow you to create a dynamic name before the function evaluates it. parameterExists() was one of those. Both isDefined() and structKeyExists() will allow dynamic variables. So will the member function of structKeyExists() > structName.keyExists("theKey").

Again, if you are new to ColdFusion, I'd simply pretend you never saw parameterExists(). I believe it has been listed as "deprecated" since CF 4.5 or somewhere around there. That's almost 20 years ago. That function has actually become somewhat of a joke about how Adobe never really throws away their trash.

As I pointed out above, I'd get rid of it completely and go with structKeyExists(). I also don't know what your whole page is doing, but with the code you provided, I'd change it to something like this:

<cfloop from="1" to="#url.loopcounter#" index="loopvar">
    <cfoutput>
    <cfif structKeyExists(form,"Component#loopvar#")>

    <!--- SANITIZE INPUTS --->
    <cfset inMontplastBarcode = sanitizingFunction(FORM.MontaplastBarcode)>
    <cfset inBadgeNumber = sanitizingFunction(URL.BadgeNumber)>
    <!--- Now use sanitized inputs in query with queryparams --->
    <cfquery name="InsertStuff" datasource="myds">
            INSERT INTO Results (MP_Barcode, Reworked, Reworked_By)
            VALUES (
              <cfqueryparam value="#inMontaplastBarcode#" cfsqltype="cf_sql_varchar" maxlength="50">
            , 'YES'
            , <cfqueryparam value="#inBadgeNumber#" cfsqltype="cf_sql_varchar" maxlength="20">
        )
    </cfquery>

    </cfif>
    </cfoutput>
</cfloop>

In your database, Reworked should be a boolean datatype. It appears that it may be a 'Yes' or 'No' string. A true boolean will be a) smaller and b) easier to validate. In the cfqueryparams, if you are using a cf_sql_varchar datatype, make sure you set an appropriate max length. You'll need to look at the available CF datatypes and see how they match up to your database datatypes. (Also see https://cfdocs.org/cfqueryparam)

For your sanitizingFunction() that you'll use to sanitize your input variables, you'll want to write a function that will follow through the steps to clean up your variables to strip out unsafe characters or other things you don't want. That is an entirely different, extremely large topic all on its own.

Upvotes: 2

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