ColdFusion Converting Form Values into a Struct

Question

I am building a form for my ColdFusion application using the naming format report[{field-name}] which when using RoR or CFWheels would give me a struct on the backend called report containing all of my field names. I am using FW/1 so all of my form fields get put into the RC scope rather than remaining in the Form scope. I know that it is possible to convert my form fields into a ColdFusion struct, because, as I said, CFWheels does it. I just have no idea how to make my application do it.

Here is part of the form that I am talking about

<dl class="oneColumn">
    <dt class="first"><label for="report[name]">Name</label></dt>
    <dd><input type="text" name="report[name]" class="text" /></dd>
    <dt><label for="report[description]">Description</label></dt>
    <dd><textarea name="report[description]" class="textarea"></textarea></dd>
</dl>

Answer 1

Adam had the right context, but his code snippet was wrong.

A function that will work is this:

<cffunction name="$createNestedParamStruct" returntype="struct" access="public" output="false">
    <cfargument name="params" type="struct" required="true" />
    <cfscript>
        var loc = {};
        for(loc.key in arguments.params)
        {
            if (Find("[", loc.key) && Right(loc.key, 1) == "]")
            {
                // object form field
                loc.name = SpanExcluding(loc.key, "[");

                // we split the key into an array so the developer can have unlimited levels of params passed in
                loc.nested = ListToArray(ReplaceList(loc.key, loc.name & "[,]", ""), "[", true);
                if (!StructKeyExists(arguments.params, loc.name))
                arguments.params[loc.name] = {};

                loc.struct = arguments.params[loc.name]; // we need a reference to the struct so we can nest other structs if needed
                loc.iEnd = ArrayLen(loc.nested);
                for(loc.i = 1; loc.i lte loc.iEnd; loc.i++) // looping over the array allows for infinite nesting
                {
                    loc.item = loc.nested[loc.i];
                    if (!StructKeyExists(loc.struct, loc.item))
                        loc.struct[loc.item] = {};
                    if (loc.i != loc.iEnd)
                        loc.struct = loc.struct[loc.item]; // pass the new reference (structs pass a reference instead of a copy) to the next iteration
                    else
                        loc.struct[loc.item] = arguments.params[loc.key];
                }
                // delete the original key so it doesn't show up in the params
                StructDelete(arguments.params, loc.key, false);
            }
        }
    </cfscript>
    <cfreturn arguments.params />
</cffunction>

I tested it in my application (outside of CFWheels) and it worked perfectly. All you do is pass in a struct (in my case the Rc struct from FW/1) containing what should be structures, but displaying as strings and you will be returns a structure with nested structures.

Example:

<cfscript>
    Struct['hello[world]'] = 1;
    Struct['hello[earth]'] = 2;
    myhello = $createNestedParamStruct(Struct);
    /* Now myhello equals this:
        myhello.hello.world = 1;
        myhello.hello.eath = 2;
    */
</cfscript>

Answer 2

So the most basic form of the change you need to do is this:

mystruct.name = form["report[name]"];

What you need to do is write a loop that loops over the form struct and parses the form field names and builds structures like these. I'm guessing it's already written somewhere in CFWheels (as a function), and you could save yourself headache and frustration by just finding it and pulling it out for yourself.

I think this is it, but I'm not sure:

<!--- helper method to recursively map a structure to build mapping paths and retrieve its values so you can have your way with a deeply nested structure --->
<cffunction name="$mapStruct" returntype="void" access="public" output="false" mixin="dispatch">
    <cfargument name="map" type="struct" required="true" />
    <cfargument name="struct" type="struct" required="true" />
    <cfargument name="path" type="string" required="false" default="" />
    <cfscript>
        var loc = {};
        for(loc.item in arguments.struct)
        {
            if (IsStruct(arguments.struct[loc.item])) // go further down the rabit hole
            {
                $mapStruct(map=arguments.map, struct=arguments.struct[loc.item], path="#arguments.path#[#loc.item#]");
            }
            else // map our position and value
            {
                arguments.map["#arguments.path#[#loc.item#]"] = {};
                arguments.map["#arguments.path#[#loc.item#]"].value = arguments.struct[loc.item];
            }
        }
    </cfscript>
</cffunction>