Send input from client as array of objects

PHP does this nicely, and CF does too but it isn't very obvious. For example, instead of naming the fields firstname1, firstname2, firstname3, etc, you can name them all "firstname" and they will be posted in the order that they are laid out in the form. With this said, you can then access that form field as an array of values on the server side.

Try this method. On the page where your form is being posted to, do a <cfdump var="#getFormParams()#"> with this method defined on the page. Another thing this function does is checks the encoding type. Forms of multipart encoding are handled as a MultipartRequest from the com.oreilly.servlet package where as your standard form post is handled by the HttpServletRequest

<cffunction name="getFormParams" access="public" output="false" returntype="struct"
               hint="Returns a collection of form params regardless of the encoding type">
     <cfset var arParts = form.getPartsArray()>
     <cfset var isMultipart = structKeyExists(local, "arParts")>
     <cfset var stcParams = {}>
     <!--- If the form is multipart, we will loop through the array created
            internally by the com.oreilly.servlet.MultipartRequest class --->
     <cfif isMultipart>
          <cfloop array="#arParts#" index="part">
               <!--- Check to see if the param has been found already. If so, append
                      any duplicate params to the same array --->
               <cfif part.isParam()>
                    <cfif NOT structKeyExists(stcParams, part.getName())>
                         <cfset stcParams[part.getName()] = [part.getStringValue()]>
                    <cfelse>
                         <cfset arrayAppend(stcParams[part.getName()], part.getStringValue())>
                    </cfif>
               <cfelseif part.isFile()>
                    <cfif NOT structKeyExists(stcParams, part.getName())>
                         <cfset stcParams[part.getName()] = [part.getFileName()]>
                    <cfelse>
                         <cfset arrayAppend(stcParams[part.getName()], part.getFileName())>
                    </cfif>
               </cfif>
          </cfloop>
     <cfelse>
          <!--- It's wasn't a multipart form so we will get the param map from
                 the HttpServletRequest object --->
          <cfset stcParams = getPageContext().getRequest().getParameterMap()>
     </cfif>
     
     <cfreturn stcParams>
</cffunction>

Assume your form is the following:

<form action="page.cfm" method="post">
     <input type="hidden" name="names" value="tristan" />
     <input type="hidden" name="names" value="joe" />
     <input type="hidden" name="names" value="bob" />
</form>

page.cfm

<cfset arNames = getFormParams()["names"]> --> ['tristan', 'joe', 'bob']

This is also very helpful when you have fields with the same names and values that can't easily be accessed by using the "traditional" looping as suggested previously. If instead of "tristan" the value submitted had a comma in it, doing it the standard way by access the FORM scope could result in incorrect assumption of the data. If the value "tristan" was really "lee, tristan", here is how it would be handled in both ways:

<cfset arNames = listToArray(form["names"])> --> ['lee', 'tristan', 'joe', 'bob']
<cfset arNames = getFormParams()["names"]> --> ['lee, tristan', 'joe', 'bob']

Notice how by accessing the key in the FORM scope to get the list of values assumes that "lee" and "tristan" are 2 seperate values... that's wrong.

Hopefully this helps...

When I want to do stuff with form fields resembling that, I generally start with something like this:

<cfloop list="#form.fieldnames#" index="ThisField">

<cfif left(ThisField, somenumber) is "somestring">

do something with this information.