What is the easiest way to change the ouput of all dateField at once?

Thytar wrote: I was wanting to use something like this:         <!--- this controls all date output --->         <cfparam name="#form.*Date# = dateModOutput">         <cfparam name="dateModOutput = DateFormat(form.*Date,"mmm/dd/yyyy")">

Your cfparam syntax seems strange to me. I would aim for something like <cfparam name="form.CTScanDate" default="#DateFormat(now(),'mmm/dd/yyyy')#">. Here, I have set form.CTScanDate by default to today's date.

The form.*Date would effect ALL DATEFIELD entries in the form such as... #CTScanDate# #MRIScanDate# #BoneScanDate# and so on... Any code that would effectively do this is fine. My boss said it can't be done... but I believe anything is possible and that this is probably very simple and easy.

Your boss is right. Partly. So are you. It can be done, however not by placing wildcards into form field names. I would follow the way Dan Bracuk pointed out, and do something like this:

<cfset formFieldNames = "CTScanDate,MRIScanDate,BoneScanDate">

<!--- Loop through list of field names --->

<cfloop list="#formFieldNames#" index="fieldName">

<!--- Pick out field names that end in 'date' --->   

<cfif len(fieldName) GTE 4 and right(fieldName,4) is "date">

<cfparam name="form[fieldname]" default="#DateFormat(now(),'mmm/dd/yyyy')#">

</cfif>

</cfloop>

<cfdump var="#form#">

I have assumed the form has not yet been submitted. Otherwise you wouldn't have to cfparam anything.

You can cfloop through form.fieldnames and if the index contains the string "date", do something with it.

You could build a dynamic query which only updates the fieldnames with

right(fieldname,4) eq 'date'