Sending out 2 separate Email Responders? cfform

craigkaminsky wrote:
> When CF submits a form, it takes all elements and adds them to the form
> structure. ...

To nitpick CF does not submit a form, it receives a form from the web
server. This point is not necessary to grasp to understand how to use
the form structure that is being discussed.

But it is often a source of confusion in beginning ColdFusion
developers. It is very helpful to understand the roles each layer plays
and not confusing which does what. The web application, the client, the
web server and the application server (or favorite being ColdFusion
naturally) all have different responsibilities and a lot of grief can be
avoided when this is understood.

O.K. I'll get back to eating my lunch and get off this soapbox.

Sorry, Dan! Didn't mean to duplicate the response. I submitted my reply as yours was coming in :)!

It does make sense and, no, you do not need to specify the name of the form. When CF submits a form, it takes all elements and adds them to the form structure. So, (form, "q1") will look for the structure names form and then a key in that structure called q1.

As a helpful tool, add the following to the top of the CFML page that processes your form:
<cfdump var="#form" />
<cfabort/>

This will dump out the entire form structure and show you what's inside it (the cfabort tag stops all other processing in its tracks). It can be pretty helpful to see what is coming over. Try it with various fields selected or not selected in your form (this way you can see all the different data that's passed in).

Cheers,
Craig

You don't have to specify the name of the form. For what it's worth, <cfdump var="#form#"> is one of my favourite troubleshooting lines of code.

Glad to help and I hope it works out for you :)! Keep us posted...CF is a fantastic language and I can all but guarantee that as you get into it, you'll love it more and more! As a language/server, it just keeps getting better.

Cheers,
Craig

Taking a look at your form, I'd like to suggest a few things to alter in the front-end form itself to make your life easier on the back-end.

1. You are using checkboxes for yes and no. Change these to radio buttons, where only one can be selected (I am assuming you don't want someone selecting yes AND no on the same question).
The input tag would look like the following
<input type="radio" name="q1" id="q1" value="yes" />
<input type="radio" name="q1" id="q1" value="no" />
2. Currently you have each input element for the checkboxes with a unique name. This makes your server-side validation more difficult than necessary. Notice above how both the name and id of the question 1 radio elements are the same (q1). This groups the two radio buttons together and makes server-side validation (IMO).

One the server side, you could do something along the lines of the following (NOT optimal code...just meant to get you rolling:
<cfif StructKeyExists(form,"q1")>
<cfif form.q1 is "yes">
<cfmail>accepted....</cfmail>
<cfelse>
<cfmail>not accepted...</cfmail>
</cfif>
<cfelseif StructKeyExists(form,"q2")>
<cfif form.q2 eq "yes">
<cfmail>accepted....</cfmail>
<cfelse>
<cfmail>not accepted...</cfmail>
</cfif>
<cfelseif ....>
<cfif form.q1 eq "yes">
<cfmail>accepted....</cfmail>
<cfelse>
<cfmail>not accepted...</cfmail>
</cfif>
</cfif>

This pseudo-code is using the native ColdFusion function/method StructKeyExists to check if the form field was passed in (CF passes all form data to the processing page as a struct/structure). This is a fast way to check if a field, such as a radio button, was sent from the form.

So, in our example, if the form field q1 exists in the form structure, someone selected yes or no for that question. Then, you can use an added conditional (cfif) statement to check the value of the selected radio button. In this case, it's a string for yes or no. If it's yes, send one email. If no, send the other.

Again, none of that is optimized...just my quick reply. Also, none of this replaces what Ian and Dan mention (learn more about booleans and it's always great to write out your steps in plain English and then worry about turning it into working code).

Hope this helps!
Craig

Something more complex then just a basic programming branch AKA an if
statement?

Pseudo Code:
if [some condition] then
do this code
else
do that code


In ColdFusion that would often look like this:
<cfif form.aField EQ "Yes">
<cfmail...>
You are accepted
</cfmail>
<cfelse>
<cfmail...>
You are rejected
</cfmail>
</cfif>