User Guide

Table Of Contents

Strings 53

You can also create a structure by assigning a value in the structure. For example, the following

line creates a new structure called MyStruct with a key named MyValue, equal to 2:

Note: In previous ColdFusion versions, this line created a Variables scope variable named

"MyStruct.MyValue" with the value 2.

After you create a structure, you can use functions or direct references to manipulate its contents,

including adding key-value pairs.

You can use either of the following methods to reference elements stored in a structure:

• StructureName.KeyName

• StructureName["KeyName"]

The following examples show these methods:

depts.John="Sales"

depts["John"]="Sales"

When you assign an existing structure to a new variable, ColdFusion does not create a new

structure. Instead, the new variable accesses the same data (location) in memory as the original

structure variable. In other words, both variables are references to the same object.

For example, the following line creates a new variable, myStructure2, that is a reference to the

same structure as the myStructure variable:

When you change the contents of myStructure2, you also change the contents of myStructure. To

copy the contents of a structure, use the ColdFusion

Duplicate function, which copies the

contents of structures and other complex data types.

Structure key names can be the names of complex data objects, including structures or arrays.

This lets you create arbitrarily complex structures.

For more information on using structures, see Chapter 5, “Using Arrays and Structures,” on

page 97.

Queries

A query object, sometimes referred to as a query, query result, or record set, is a complex

ColdFusion data type that represents data in a set of named columns, similar to the columns of a

database table. The following ColdFusion tags can create query objects:

• cfquery

• cfdirectory

• cfhttp

• cfldap

• cfpop

• cfprocresult

In these tags, the name attribute specifies the query object’s variable name. The QueryNew

function also creates query objects.