Creating dynamically named variables

Question

I'm fairly new, as you'll see. I want to create the following variables:

V1 = word 1 in my query
V2 = word 2 in my query
etc...

I can do this statically like so:

<cfset V1=#qryGetWords["WordName"][1]#>
<cfset V2=#qryGetWords["WordName"][2]#>
<cfset V3=#qryGetWords["WordName"][3]#>
<cfset V4=#qryGetWords["WordName"][4]#>

but I want to do it dynamically. I've seen other answers but I can't get them to work either. Can anything like the following work with a tweak to the syntax?

<cfloop query="qryGetWords" index="i">
<cfset "V#i#" = #qryGetWords["WordName"]["i"]#>
</cfloop>

Can I not have an index and a query within the cfloop?

Some of my question disappeared. The static version was this: — Amanda Lietman, May 17 '13 at 17:09
This has nothing to do with your error, but you do not need any of those `#` signs, except for `"V#i#"` because the variable `i` is inside quotes. The rest of them are completely superfluous. — Leigh, May 17 '13 at 19:11
Why do you want to do this? There might be a better solution. — Russ, May 17 '13 at 21:09

score 5 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:27

5

Since you are using a query loop, you already have access to a built in index ie query.currentRow. As with the cfoutput tag:

When you specify a query attribute, this tag loops over the query rows .... It also sets the query.currentRow variable to the current row being processed.

Example:

<cfloop query="qryGetWords">
    <!--- within the loop, you could also use the shortcut: qryGetWords.WordName --->
    <cfset variables["V"& currentRow] = qryGetWords["WordName"][currentRow]>
</cfloop>

Update:

While that answers the question asked, Dan's answer raises a good point. It may not be the best way to store information. If you elaborate on your overall goal, we can suggest an approach that might be more flexible.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:27

Community

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answered May 17 '13 at 17:34

Leigh

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Thank you for all of the replies! I thought they would be emailed to me (but they weren't) and I had trouble finding this forum again. I've bookmarked it now. – Amanda Lietman May 24 '13 at 17:54
Leigh's solution worked perfectly for what I asked. I do think I'll need to use an array, so that's helpful too. I'm pulling words from a database and putting them into rows in an online table. The user will click on the words (reading them first as this is for dyslexic kids) to find the one that is the "chosen" word. – Amanda Lietman May 24 '13 at 18:06
Hm.. do you really need either? In other words, what functionality do you need that cannot be accomplish with a simple `cfoutput query` and `query.currentRow`? – Leigh May 24 '13 at 18:09

Henry · Answer 2 · 2013-05-17T18:11:27.520

2

<cfloop query="qryGetWords">
    <cfset "V#qryGetWords.currentRow#" = qryGetWords.WordName>
</cfloop>

note: use of qryGetWords. inside the cfloop query= is optional. You can omit it and it'll still work. Some prefer to use it, some don't. That's your choice.

or

<cfloop from="1" to="#qryGetWords.recordCount#" index="i">
    <cfset "V#i#" = qryGetWords.WordName[i]>
</cfloop>

edited May 17 '13 at 18:11

answered May 17 '13 at 17:16

Henry

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this will work, but like Leigh's answer says. `currentRow` is built into queries already. No need to increment your own counter. – Matt Busche May 17 '13 at 17:46

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered May 17 '13 at 20:17

if you need to loop over them or reference by index later then an array is an option to consider

if so then you can build up array like this

<cfset words = [] />
<cfloop query="queryname">
    <cfset arrayappend(words, queryname.wordname) />
</cfloop>

or through internal functions by way of lists

<cfset words = listtoarray(valuelist(queryname.wordname)) />

and if content may contain commas then must use another delimiter of your choice (new line chr(10) may be safest though I use pipes "|" often, cf loves character delimited strings)

<cfset words = listtoarray(valuelist(queryname.wordname, chr(10)), chr(10)) />

then you can reference statically like so

<cfif something eq words[3]>
    #blah#
</cfif>

or dynamically like so (or probably easier on newer versions, I am still on CF8)

<cfloop from="1" to="#arraylen(words)#" index="i">
    <cfoutput><div>#i#: #words[i]#</div>
</cfloop>

this also allows you to dump all words at once and operations on arrays that would not be possible with dynamically generated variable names/structkeys

Creating dynamically named variables

3 Answers3