Dynamic checkboxes

[hpvic03]

I have a page that generates a form with dynamically named checkboxes. I need a way to figure out which check boxes were checked. Anyone know of a way to do this?

Just think of a simple database of names:

John
Joe
Frank
Fred
Alex

Each name has a checkbox next to it. There is a submit form at the bottom. Which names were checked?

The checkboxes are named after each person. So I thought of just looping through the database to see if each name was checked,

<cfoutput query="namelist">
<cfif form.#name# is "checked"> -- code -- </cfif>
</cfoutput>

But apparently you can't do form.#name#. So I don't know where to go from there. Thanks in advance!

 

[cfStarlight]

Checkboxes only exist on the action page if they were checked. So you could use IsDefined(). If the field is defined, that means it was checked.

<cfoutput query="namelist">
<cfif IsDefined("form.#name#")>
-- code --
</cfif>
</cfoutput>

You can also reference dynamic fields using array notation:

<cfoutput query="namelist">
The value = #form[name]#<br />
</cfoutput>

As I'm not sure what your form does, I don't know if that's the best method, but it would work.

 

[hpvic03]

Thanks! I'll give it a try and get back to you. I know for sure that form.#variable# will not work, but the array might work.

 

[cfStarlight]

This will work because the code is only evaluating the value of the query column #name# (not the form field value)

<cfoutput query="namelist">
<cfif IsDefined("form.#name#")>
-- code --
</cfif>
</cfoutput>

 

[hpvic03]

I just tried both of those things and got an error on each. I can't use the array because when I leave a checkbox out I get this error:

Element 5 is undefined in a Java object of type class coldfusion.filter.FormScope referenced as ...
(5 is the person's id number who was left unchecked, also the name of the checkbox)

And when I did <cfif isdefined("form.#name#")> I got this error:

Parameter 1 of function IsDefined, which is now "form.4", must be a syntactically valid variable name.
(4 was the first person's id which came up first in the query)

Any more ideas? I can always change the name of the checkbox and it's value if that will bring about another solution. Please let me know. Thanks!

 

[hpvic03]

Actually I just got it to work with the quotes. Thank you!

 

[TruthInSatire]

really check boxes were meant to store multiple values.
so you'd have several check boxes with with the same name, different values.

<cfoutput query = "nameList">
  <input type = "checkbox" name = "names" value = "#nameList.name#" <cfif listFind(form.names, nameList.name)>checked = "Checked"</cfif>>#nameList.name#
<br>
</cfoutput>