Drop Down List Box from an Array?

Forum|Forum|16 years ago
July 31, 2009
3 replies
3094 views

I have an array - a lovely little 1-dimensional array of customer last names - that I want to display in a drop down list box so my user can begin to type a value in that list box and CF will bring up the matching entry.

I have tried cfloop and cfselect, but haven't had any success. Once the user clicks on a name, I want to be able to take that value and do some other processing.

Any suggestions?

Getting started

This topic has been closed for replies.

S

sockerdadAuthor

Inspiring

I started off using a query:

SELECT DISTINCT LastName

FROM Members

ORDER BY LastName

</cfquery>

<cfselect name = "MbrLastName"

query = "LastNameQry"

value = "LastName"

required = "yes">

</cfselect>

But while the list box performed what I wanted it to do, I couldn't capture the user's selection from this box. This is necessary because I want to perform a second query that will select first names within the chosen last name.

On the advice of a friend (a Coldfusion programmer), I put the query in a function, then loaded the query results to the before-mentioned session-wide array. I wondered about using a structure, but that's moot at this point.

Here's how I loaded the array:

1     <cfscript>
2          nameRecordCount = #lastNameVariable.recordcount#;
3          ndx = 1;

4          for (ndx = 1; ndx LTE nameRecordCount; ndx++)
5             {
6               lastNameArray[ndx] = #lastNameVariable.LastName[ndx]#;
7             }

8 </cfscript>

Then I tried a variety of things to load the cfselect: another loop that used line 6 as the VALUE attribute and just giving the entire array to the value: Value = #lastNameArray#.

It didn't like either idea. I swear I heard an evil chuckle as I tried them.

-----------------------

Perhaps my bottom line problem isn't how to load the cfselect, but rather, how to capture the user's selection and save it to a session-wide variable.

D

Dan_Bracuk

Inspiring

So you were attempting to load another drop down with all the available first names for the selected last names?

S

sockerdadAuthor

Inspiring

Yes and not yet. The query successfully gave me all last names, but I couldn't capture the user's selection to execute the second query. I can't get the array to load the cfselect list box at all.

Don't us CF virgins drive you crazy?

Prompt 1 is for all distinct last names. Then the selected last name is used to pull all the first names under that particular last name. Most times, it is just one name, but in several cases there are up to 5 first names for a given last name (and not 'Smith' as you your assume!).

I toyed with the idea of joining the two names in a single query to show "LastName, FirstName" as in Smith, Barney, but it seems a cop-out to give up when I know there is a legitimate solution that I will surely need in other processing. And besides, even if I did that, I still haven't been able to capture the user's choice!