Comma delimited list

[jenn1]

Hi,

In the following list, how can I keep the word Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences as one word instead of

Social

Behavioral

and Economic Sciences

<cfloop list="Biological Sciences, Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences" index="i" delimiters=",">

<cfoutput> #i# <br /></cfoutput>

</cfloop>

The list should look like:

Biological Sciences

Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences

Thanks!

[ilssac · Accepted solution]

Use something other then a comma to delimit the list.

<cfloop list="Biological Science| Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences" index="i" delimiters="|">
<cfoutput> #i# <br /></cfoutput>
</cfloop>

[jenn1]

Thanks Ian!  It worked great!

[BKBK]

Assuming that you may not tamper with the given list, then there are functions you can use. For example, listFirst() and listRest().

<cfset list="Biological Sciences, Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences">
<cfoutput>#listFirst(list)#<br>
#listRest(list)#</cfoutput>

[Adam Cameron.]

The problem here is that it is impossible to distinguish between whether the comma is delimiter, or whether it is part of the data.  So using list functions will not reliably work unless one already knows the composition of the list.

If there is a chance there will be commas in the data, then one must use a different delimiter.  For user-entered data, then using any keyable character for the delimiter is ill-advised.

I tend to use chr(30) - record separator - as my delimiter, as it is very unlikely to appear in use-entered data.

That said, CF lists are a crap multi-value data structure, and I avoid them where I can; preferring to use an array, struct or object as appropriate.

--

Adam