Oh great masters of ColdFusion, a humble beginner beseeches your help. Oh
great masters of this arcane language, how do I count the number of columns in
a given table?
In PHP, all I have to do is to invoke mysql_num_fields(), and I'm done without
further ado. In ColdFusion, I have to count them by first sending a query
before getting the result's column names. I have to do something like this:
<cfquery name="qtest" datasource="foo">
select * from data limit 1
</cfquery>
<cfoutput>
The number of columns is: #ListLen(qtest.ColumnList)# <br />
</cfoutput>
This works, although this doen't look elegant (IMHO). Do you guys have better
solutions?
In addition, how do I manipulate the nth column of any given table? The
solution I've found (so far) is to use ListGetAt() such that:
<cfquery name="tblPointer" datasource="simoncpu_shop">
<cfoutput>
select `#ListGetAt(test.ColumnList, 1)#` from data
</cfoutput>
</cfquery>
The problem is, ListGetAt() returns the list in alphabetical order--in other
words, that function does not return the list in the correct order! You see,
I'm creating a ColdFusion app that constantly alters the data's categories, and
I implemented the categories as the table's individual columns.
One may argue that this is a serious database design flaw. The argument is
probably correct, but please note that I'm just experimenting with ColdFusion
in order to learn more about this language (I've only started this month).
ColdFusion is not so hard compared to other scripting languages. The
challenge, I think, is not on how to learn it; but rather, the challenge is to
learn how to be open-minded in adopting it. I hope I won't offend anyone in
this list, but I had to keep myself from having an *ehem* un-nice *ehem*
reaction when I first encountered features such as <cfform>, <cftable>,
<cfquery>, and other tags that uhm, makes our lives, uhm, easier. :)
Anyway, I'm starting to love this language because ColdFusion DOES make our
lives easier. I hope you guys can help me with my transition. Thanks for your
time.
[ simon.cpu ]
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