Separating a string from a form box into individual Characters and display

Report · Sep 05, 2018

Good morning,

i am using CF2016 on a window PC.

At my job i have the role of adding new hires into our card reader box so that new employees can enter into our office. I often can get up to 10 new employee request per day. I devised a rather complicated way of converting each character of their last name into a number format so that i can quickly punch their name info into nine-digit keypad of the card reader box. The letter arrangement of the key pad is similar a touch-tone phone.

I currently have two Cf pages to do what i need. The first page is a basic form with 6 text boxes that will only allow 1 character per box for the person last name. the second page is a series of conditional statements that will assign a numerical value to each character.

What i want to accomplish is to have one text box that i can enter the entire last name of the new employee and then have Coldfusion separate each character from the input box of the previous page and assign then display the same numerical values. Below is an abbreviated version of my current code for each page. i have enter last name of "Nelson" into each individual box.

Is there a simpler way to do this?

<button class="btn btn-primary btn-lg btn-block" type="submit" value="Submit">Submit</button>

</div>

</form>

<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">

<head>

</head>

<body>

<cfif '#form.box1#' EQ "A">2#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "B">22#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "C">222#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "D">3#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "E">33#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "F">333#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "G">4#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "H">44#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "I">444#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "J">5#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "K">55#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "L">555#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "M">6#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "N">66#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "O">666#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "P">7#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "Q">77#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "R">777#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "S">7777#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "T">8#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "U">88#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "V">888#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "W">9#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "X">99#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "Y">999#

<cfelseif '#form.box1#' EQ "Z">9999#

</cfif><br>

<cfif '#form.box2#' EQ "A">2#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "B">22#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "C">222#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "D">3#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "E">33#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "F">333#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "G">4#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "H">44#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "I">444#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "J">5#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "K">55#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "L">555#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "M">6#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "N">66#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "O">666#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "P">7#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "Q">77#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "R">777#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "S">7777#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "T">8#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "U">88#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "V">888#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "W">9#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "X">99#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "Y">999#

<cfelseif '#form.box2#' EQ "Z">9999#

</cfif><br>

....... this continues on until the 12th box </cfif>

Below are the numbers on the key pad that i will enter for the last name "Nelson" is as follows

N = 66#

E = 33#

L = 555#

S = 7777#

O = 666#

N = 66#

Report · Sep 05, 2018

Ah.. almost as if it were being texted on a not-smart phone?

Yeah, you can make one input type="text" to enter the last name and use left() and mid() to iterate each letter in the last name. But using that huge IF/ELSE statement.. IDK.. there has to be a better way. I suppose you could put all that into a CFC function and send each letter to the function which will then return the number. Still inefficient and painful, but feasible.

I'll keep thinking on this.

V/r,

^ _ ^

Report · Sep 05, 2018

BTW.. this: <cfif '#form.box1#' EQ "A">

Would be slightly more efficient if you typed it as: <cfif form.box1 EQ "A">

The hashtags are only needed for direct-to-screen output, or for inside strings, which you don't need string to reference a form scope variable (or any scope, really.)

HTH,

^ _ ^

Report · Sep 15, 2018

Wolfshade, BKBK, My apologies for just getting back to reply to the thread. I suffered a sudden loss of a family member. i will tryout the suggestions within the next few days. Thank you guys all for your help.

Report · Sep 15, 2018

Sorry to hear that, ammarq48536816. My condolences.

Report · Sep 17, 2018

Condolences, ammarq48536816.

V/r,

^ _ ^

Report · Sep 05, 2018

Here's a thought. A STRUCT!

<cfif NOT StructKeyExists(application.conversionStruct)>
    <cfset application.conversionStruct = {} />
    <cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'A','2#') />
    <cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'B','22#') />
    <cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'C','222#') />
    <cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'D','3#') />
    <cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'E','33#') />
...  one for each letter..
    <cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'Z','9999#') />
</cfif>

Put the above code into your application.cfc file so it will be available application wide.

Then create a function that will StructFindKey() each letter of the last name and return the value of that key.

Then just iterate through each letter of the last name calling that function and sending the letter to it. Voila.

HTH,

^ _ ^

Report · Sep 07, 2018

Don't know if you've been reading any of my suggestions, but I wrote something that does what I suggested. In case you find it helpful, or anyone else.

Conversion Struct<br />
<cfset application.conversionStruct = {} /><cfset variables.thisName = "Nelson" />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'A','2##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'B','22##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'C','222##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'D','3##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'E','33##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'F','333##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'G','4##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'H','44##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'I','444##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'J','5##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'K','55##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'L','555##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'M','6##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'N','66##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'O','666##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'P','7##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'Q','77##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'R','777##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'S','7777##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'T','8##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'U','88##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'V','888##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'W','9##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'X','99##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'Y','999##') />
<cfset StructInsert(application.conversionStruct,'Z','9999##') />
<cfloop index="idx" from="1" to="#len(variables.thisName)#" step="1">
     <cfdump var="#mid(variables.thisName,idx,1)# = #StructFindKey(application.conversionStruct,mid(variables.thisName,idx,1),'one')[1].value#" />
</cfloop>

V/r,

^ _ ^

Report · Sep 09, 2018

I can summarize your data in a few lines, as follows:

</cfloop>

I then tested by simulating a posted form:

#box[1][form.box1]#<br>

#box[2][form.box2]#<br>

#box[3][form.box3]#<br>

#box[4][form.box4]#<br>

#box[5][form.box5]#<br>

#box[4][form.box6]#

</cfoutput>