Matt Busche's blog: Using ColdFusion to parse a list with empty values

Matt Busche's blog

Using ColdFusion to parse a list with empty values

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I was parsing through a csv file today and having issues with empty values. The data I'm receiving is in a format the 3rd party cannot update, so my data looked something like this

1,,abc,32,,gef

Dumping the list provides the expected list, but looping through the list it skips over values


			
			
			
				
				
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			  ColdFISH is developed by Jason Delmore.  Source code and license information available at coldfish.riaforge.org

			<cfoutput>
    <cfloop list="#list1#" index="i">
        #i#<br>
    </cfloop>
</cfoutput>
		1<cfoutput>
2    <cfloop list="#list1#" index="i">
3        #i#<br>
4    </cfloop>
5</cfoutput>

produces


			
			
			
				
				
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			  ColdFISH is developed by Jason Delmore.  Source code and license information available at coldfish.riaforge.org

			1
abc
32
gef
		11
2abc
332
4gef

After googling this for a bit I gave up and asked my brother. He told me to use the 'includeemptyfields' attribute in listtoarray(). I knew I could turn a list into an array, but I wasn't aware of the third attribute until today, the default is obviously false, so blank values were never included.

The code below produces the desired output. Notice I am now looping through an array instead of a list.


			
			
			
				
				
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			  ColdFISH is developed by Jason Delmore.  Source code and license information available at coldfish.riaforge.org

			<cfset newlist = listToArray(list1,',',true) />
<cfoutput>
    <cfloop array="#newlist#" index="i">
        #i#<br>
    </cfloop>
</cfoutput>

1

abc
32

gef
		1<cfset newlist = listToArray(list1,',',true) />
2<cfoutput>
3    <cfloop array="#newlist#" index="i">
4        #i#<br>
5    </cfloop>
6</cfoutput>
7
81
9
10abc
1132
12
13gef

 

					

					
					This entry was posted on December 4, 2012 at 12:13 AM and has received 658 views. There are currently 1 comments. 
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#1 by James Moberg on 12/4/12 - 12:24 PM

What happens if the values are comma delimated, quoted and have commas within the values? The ListToArray() method won't provide you with valid results.

I encountered difficulty with ColdFusion when a valid CSV file had carriage returns and inconsistent columns. I was able to process the data by adding the OpenCSV java library to the server and then looping over the array:
http://www.stephenwithington.com/blog/index.cfm/20...

NOTE: I couldn't get this blog page to open using Safari on the iPhone. It displayed the jQuery Mobile navigation, but clicking on the link didn't do anything.

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