Question

I’ve gotten an error saying I cannot nest cfoutput tags when the tags use the attribute “query”. I presume this is hinting at me combining the queries these two cfoutput tags are outputting.

The problem is, the MySQL query the first cfoutput tag is outputting the data from is printing out single pieces of information into a table, the “child” cfoutput tag is using a query that gets several pieces of information. So I don’t know how I’d do this.

Here’s the query that the “parent” cfoutput tag is outputting:

            SELECT DISTINCT s.id            AS  id,
                s.heading           AS  heading,
                s.reasonForSale     AS  reason,
                s.viewing           AS  viewing,
                s.additionalInfo    AS  additional,
                s.contents          AS  content,
                a.id                        AS  auctioneer_id,
                a.name                      AS  auctioneer,
                a.website                   AS  website,
                d.startDate                 AS  start_date,
                d.endDate                   AS  end_date,
                d.startTimeHours            AS  start_hour,
                d.startTimeMins             AS  start_min,
                d.startTimeType             AS  start_time_type,
                d.endTimeHours              AS  end_hour,
                d.endTimeMins               AS  end_min,
                d.endTimeType               AS  end_time_type,
                l.address                   AS  address,
                l.city                      AS  city,
                l.county                    AS  county,
                l.postcode                  AS  postcode,
                t.entryCopy                 AS  sale_type,
                f.filename                  AS  logo_file,
                s.featuredAuction           AS  featured,
                s.sale_of_week              AS  sow,
                s.brochure,
                s.auctioneerslink
        FROM    sales s,
                auctioneers a LEFT JOIN files f ON f.id = a.logoFile,
                saledates d,
                saleloc l,
                lookupcopy t
        WHERE   a.id                    =   s.auctioneer    AND
                d.saleId            =   s.id            AND
                t.id                =   s.saleType      AND
                l.id                =   d.saleLoc       AND
                d.id                =   #tmp_id#
        GROUP BY    id

Here is my new query, this will get several pieces of information, a list of things, I need to loop through when printing them. They’re image file names and will need wrapping in image tags, etc…

        SELECT      file_name
    FROM        sales_photos
    WHERE       sale_id = #tmp_id#
    ORDER BY    id

If I can’t nest these two cfoutput tags, how can I do this?

Thanks.

Answer 1

ColdFusion is correct; you are unable to embed one cfoutput with a query attribute within another cfoutput (with a query attribute).

You can, however, start a query output, and then within it…embed a new query, and loop over those results (which is already within the context of an cfoutput)–so long as you take care to scope the query name and columns (and which row) you are accessing–a la array indexing syntax rules.

For this answer, assume that your 1st query (the giant one) is wrapped in a cfquery named “parent”:

<cfoutput query="parent">
   <cfset file_name_qry = getFileNameFromID(parent.id[parent.currentrow]) />
   #parent.heading[parent.currentrow]#
     <cfloop from="1" to="#file_name_qry.recordcount#" index="i">
     #file_name_qry.file_name[i]#<br/>
     </cfloop>
</cfoutput>

<cffunction name="getFileNameFromID" returntype="query">
  <cfargument name="id" type="string" />

  <cfset var tmpQry = '' />
  <cfquery name="tmpQry" datasource="mydsn">
    SELECT      file_name
    FROM        sales_photos
    WHERE       sale_id = #arguments.id#
    ORDER BY    id
  </cfquery>

  <cfreturn tmpQry />
</cffunction>

Note the references to the names of the queries in the output.

Note also that I wrapped the 2nd query in function for convenience; you don’t need to do this necessarily–you are free to inject the cfquery within the cfoutput.

Of course, the real answer is to re-write your SQL query so that it joins to the necessary file_name attributes, and then you use a query with a group attribute…but I’ll leave that out of this answer as it is more complex, and requires knowledge of more advanced SQL as well as how the group attribute works.

This answer will work for you, but the ColdFusion community will most likely spank you for looping within a loop–for now, it’ll solve your problem, and you can investigate the group attribute and a more advanced SQL statement later.