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Complex Data Types

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CFC Functionality (It's a specialized complex data type w/methods)

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* For sake of simplistic examples, <cfqueryparam> is not used in any of the examples. Please be sure to use <cfqueryparam> in your production code

Thanks to Jeff Peters for writing his great book, "ColdFusion Lists, Arrays, and Structures"

We'll start by setting up a structure using . (dot) notation: 

<cfscript>
loginInfo = structNew();
loginInfo.username = "will";
loginInfo.password = "somePassword"; 
loginInfo.isAdmin = true;
</cfscript>
Produces this:
struct
ISADMIN true
PASSWORD somePassword
USERNAME will

Now, using bracketed notation:

<cfscript>
loginInfo = structNew();
loginInfo["username"] = "Will";
loginInfo["password"] = "somePassword";
loginInfo["isAdmin"] = "true";
</cfscript>

Yields the same as above:

struct
isAdmin true
password somePassword
username Will

Why is bracketed better? Because it allows us to set dynamic variable names. This can be quite handy, especially when dealing with forms and form values. Here's a simple variable assignment to the variables scope. 

<cfloop from="1" to="3" index="thisNum">

<cfset variables["Will" & thisNum] = "Da man!" & thisNum>

</cfloop>
Da man!1
Da man!2
Da man!3

A little more complex example, showing a dynamic structure:

<cfscript>
for(i = 1; i lte 5; i = i + 1){
loginInfo[i] = structNew();
loginInfo[i]["username"] = "Will";
loginInfo[i]["password"] = "somePassword";
loginInfo[i]["isAdmin"] = "true";

writeOutput(loginInfo[i].username & "<br>" & loginInfo[i].password &  "<br>" &  loginInfo[i].isAdmin & "<br><br>");

}
</cfscript>

Produces this:

Will
somePassword
true

Will
somePassword
true

Will
somePassword
true

Will
somePassword
true

Will
somePassword
true

struct
1
struct
isAdmin true
password somePassword
username Will
2
struct
isAdmin true
password somePassword
username Will
3
struct
isAdmin true
password somePassword
username Will
4
struct
isAdmin true
password somePassword
username Will
5
struct
isAdmin true
password somePassword
username Will
isAdmin true
password somePassword
username Will

To learn more about ColdFusion's built-in Structure functions, visit this page