Why is this set? is it like cfparam for components?

One other advantage of using var: since it is local to the function, empQuery will be marked for garbage collection once the function returns.

Hydrowizard wrote:
> Thanks Ian for explaining that-last question what is 'initializes' in laymans terms? Cheers
>
> this all reminds me of the complexity of learning how to do cfif equivalents in cfscript!

In strongly typed languages like Java and C++, before one can use a
variable one must initialize it. I.E. one must name it; define the type
of variable, integer, string, float, etc., its scope, global, package,
local, etc.

ColdFusion is generally a loosely typed language and does not require
this rigid definition. But when one starts working with code that can
be used repeatedly in the same space, typing becomes more important. So
it is a best practice to type ones variables in a function to keep the
code easier to work with.

Thanks Ian for explaining that-last question what is 'initializes' in laymans terms? Cheers

this all reminds me of the complexity of learning how to do cfif equivalents in cfscript!

Hydrowizard wrote:
> In the docs this line is used:
> <cfset var empQuery="">
> which seems to be creating a cfparam like variable in case the empQuery is not
> defined? Is that about right?

not really, it scopes the variable to one local (the "var" bit) to that function
so it won't get mixed up w/other calls to that function/cfc which can happen
under a load. something like the query gets finished but in the span of time
before it's returned, another call is made to that function & maybe the
resultset is different (not in this case bu you see where this is going). the
first call to that function could return the 2nd call's results. scoping that
variable local prevents this from happening.