CFLoop Attributes Evaluated Only Once
Posted July 22, 2006 at 6:23 PM by Ben Nadel
For index loops in ColdFusion that are looping over an array or list, I always put the ArrayLen() or ListLen() in the TO attribute. I always felt a little uneasy about it because I thought maybe the function was getting evaluated for each iteration of the index loop. My fear was that this was adding additional processing overhead for each iteration.
Well, I finally got my out of shape butt off the proverbial couch and actually tested what was going on:
- <cfoutput>
-
- <!--- Create an initial array of items. --->
- <cfset arrItems = ListToArray( "ben,dave,mark,mike" ) />
-
- Original Length: #ArrayLen( arrItems )#<br />
- <br />
-
- <!---
- Loop over the items in the array. For each iteration, add
- an item to the array to see if the loop will keep going.
- In the TO attribute, use the Min() method to ensure that
- the loop doesn't go on infinitely.
- --->
- <cfloop
- index="intIndex"
- from="1"
- to="#Min( 10, ArrayLen( arrItems) )#"
- step="1">
-
- <!--- Output the iteration values. --->
- Iteration #intIndex#. Array Length: #ArrayLen( arrItems )#<br />
-
- <!--- Add an Item to the array to see if we keep looping. --->
- <cfset ArrayAppend(
- arrItems,
- "sarah"
- ) />
-
- </cfloop>
-
- </cfoutput>
Turns out, the loop only iterates 4 times; the attributes only get evaluated that first time. When you stop to think about it, that makes a lot of sense; it is just a string. And if you take Conditional loops into account, it makes sense that the condition="" attribute is a string, not an evaluation. That way it can do a sort of delayed evaluation on the condition.
Man, understanding the basics is so important.
