coldfusionJedi

<cfset monkeys = "King Kong__+__George, Bush__+__Clinton, Hillary__+__Super_Monkey">

<cfloop index="item" list="#monkeys#" delimiters="__+__">

This entry was posted on Wednesday, May 2, 2007 at 7:28 AM. It was filed in the following categories: ColdFusion. It has been viewed 4,081 times and has 13 comments.

TweetBacks

Comments

[Add Comment] [Subscribe to Comments]

• Comment 1 written by Felix Tjandrawibawa on 2 May 2007, at 8:08 AM

  

  Hi Ray,
  
  I've come across a situation where I need to do some string splitting myself. And I found that there's a split function built in Coldfusion (I'm using CF7).
  So for splitting the monkeys string, I would just use:
  < cfset aMonkeys = myString.split("__+__") >

• Comment 2 written by Phillip Senn on 2 May 2007, at 8:14 AM

  

  <cfset Counter = 0>
  <cfoutput>
  <cfloop list="A,,C,D" index="I">
     <cfset Counter = Counter + 1>
     #Counter#: #I#<br />
  </cfloop>
  </cfoutput>
  
  One might think Counter would be 4, but it only counts up to 3.

• Comment 3 written by Raymond Camden on 2 May 2007, at 8:20 AM

  

  Geeze Phil, that was going to be my next post. ;) (I'll still post though.)
  
  Felix - it isn't built into CF, but a part of Java. I showed the UDF so folks could see a CF solution.

• Comment 4 written by Seb Duggan on 2 May 2007, at 8:22 AM

  

  Felix - bear in mind that this uses Java's underlying split() method, and that the parameter it takes is a regular expression.
  
  So, if you wanted to split a string using "*+*" as the delimiter, you'd need to escape the regex special characters, e.g. str.split("/*/+/*").
  
  Useful tip, though. I tend to forget about all the Java string methods you can call on...

• Comment 5 written by Seb Duggan on 2 May 2007, at 8:23 AM

  

  Of course, that should be:
  
  str.split("\*\+\*")

• Comment 6 written by Felix Tjandrawibawa on 2 May 2007, at 8:44 AM

  

  Oops, didn't realised that split() is actually Java's split().

• Comment 7 written by Tom Mollerus on 2 May 2007, at 9:35 AM

  

  Could someone please expand on the split() method of strings? Do you have to create the string in Java code to have the split method available? What other Java methods are available to strings in CF?
  
  If the split() method is part of any string created in CF, and if the split method is available on any CF installation regardless of the Java installation, then'd I'd suggest that it be considered a "part" of Coldfusion as much as any other function.

• Comment 8 written by Seb Duggan on 2 May 2007, at 10:03 AM

  

  Tom,
  
  You don't need to create the code in Java. The following code:
  
  <cfset strFruit = "apples--*--oranges--*--pears--*--bananas" />
  <cfset arrFruit = strFruit.split("--\*--") />
  
  Would create an array of 4 fruits. Notice the escaped asterisk in the split parameter.

• Comment 9 written by Tom Mollerus on 2 May 2007, at 10:14 AM

  

  @Seb: I went to the bother (jk) of actually trying this out myself. You're right, it does work! So whether or not we label these methods as part of Java or part of ColdFusion doesn't matter so much. When can we use these methods and when can't we? Does it depend on the application server that CF is using (JRun, WebSphere, BEA, etc.) or does it depend on the JRE installed? Or are they always available?

• Comment 10 written by Seb Duggan on 2 May 2007, at 10:20 AM

  

  I don't think there's a restriction on when you can use them. And I think all versions of CFMX run on Java, whatever platform they're on, so they should all have access to the Java methods...

• Comment 11 written by Tom Mollerus on 2 May 2007, at 10:21 AM

  

  Ben Nadel has a posting (http://www.bennadel.com/blog/492-Caution-Java-Stri...) with a link to more information about using Java string methods in CF, as well as an argument that they're not quite as useful as CF methods (arrays created with the split() method are read-only).

• Comment 12 written by charlie griefer on 2 May 2007, at 10:21 AM

  

  there's a gotcha on using split() that was recently brought to my attention. doesn't work on empty values at the end of a list.
  
  see comment at http://cfblog.com/cgriefer/index.cfm/id/make_like_...

• Comment 13 written by David Harris on 2 May 2007, at 4:56 PM

  

  Another idea I've seen when working with list...
  ...use a char that cannot be typed in when building your lists...
  eg #chr(7)# (the "beep")
  
  So you would have this:
  
  cfset monkeys = "King Kong#chr(7)#George, Bush#chr(7)#Clinton, Hillary#chr(7)#Super_Monkey"
  
  cfloop index="item" list="#monkeys#" delimiters="#chr(7)#"
  
  I would suspect it is very VERY unlikely someone will put a chr(7) in there data! :-)

[Add Comment] [Subscribe to Comments]