Home/ Questions/Q 5949043
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-22T17:11:38+00:00

Today I’m trying to improve a Jeopardy-style game for work using ColdFusion, HTML, and

  • 0

Today I’m trying to improve a Jeopardy-style game for work using ColdFusion, HTML, and Javascript. As it stands now, the game navigates to a question page which displays the question along with an answer box for the user to type in their response. We’re trying to change this to a multiple-choice quiz, instead.

The main thing I want to achieve is to have the three possible answers be displayed in random order. The database that the game pulls from has 4 attributes relevant to this, as follows:

MC_Question

MC_CorrectAnswer

MC_IncorrectAnswer1

MC_IncorrectAnswer2

I want the question page/popup to display:

MC_Question

Randomly selected Answer1

Randomly selected Answer2

Randomly selected Answer3

Submit button

I’ve created a teensy little bit of html with some randomly generated numbers that might give you a better idea of where I’m trying to go with this. 

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Question</TITLE>
<script>
    var num=Math.floor(Math.random()*3); 

    var num1=Math.floor(Math.random()*3); 
    do{
    num1=Math.floor(Math.random()*3); 
    }while (num == num1) 

    var num2=Math.floor(Math.random()*3); 
    do{
    num2=Math.floor(Math.random()*3); 
    }while (num == num2 || num1 == num2)
</script>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<H1>Question here!</H1>
<P>
<FORM>
    <INPUT type="radio" name = "Answer" value="num" />
    <script>document.write("Answer " + num);</script><br />

    <INPUT type="radio" name = "Answer" value="num1" />
    <script>document.write("Answer " + num1);</script><br />

    <INPUT type="radio" name = "Answer" value="num2" />
    <script>document.write("Answer " + num2);</script><br />
    <br>
    <input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</FORM>
</BODY>
</HTML>

My question is this: how do I tie my database answers into my randomly generated numbers to mix up the answers? In the example code above, Answer 0 would equal MC_CorrectAnswer, and answers 1 and 2 would be the incorrect ones. I’ll worry about the submission stuff etc. later- for now I just want the form to display the question and answers pulled from the DB.

I’m very new to Javascript and CF, and any input you have is greatly appreciated. If I’m going about this in completely the wrong way, please let me know.

I also took a look at this Q and A, and to address that I’d like to say that I’m happy to create a separate table for answers, with incorrect/correct flags, etc, if necessary, but what I’m really looking for here is the front-end code and logic to randomize my questions on the page. The back-end goodies don’t even exist yet.

Randomizing -and remembering that randomisation- multiple choice questions in php

Thanks so much for your time and expertise!

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Use java.util.Collections.shuffle(list). 

    <!--- simulate a database <cfquery>SELECT id, answer FROM answers</cfquery> call --->
<cfset answers = QueryNew("id,answer","integer,varchar")>
<cfloop from="1" to="3" index="idx">
    <cfset queryAddRow(answers)>
    <cfset querySetCell(answers, "id", idx)>
    <cfset querySetCell(answers, "answer", "Answer #idx#")>
</cfloop>

<cfset rownumbers = []>
<cfloop from="1" to="#answers.recordcount#" index="rowNumber">
    <cfset arrayAppend(rowNumbers, rowNumber)>
</cfloop>

<cfset createObject("java", "java.util.Collections").shuffle(rowNumbers)>

<cfdump var="#rowNumbers#">

<cfoutput>
<body>
<h1>Question here!</h1>
<p>
<form>
    <cfloop array="#rowNumbers#" index="rowNumber">
        <input type="radio" name="answerId" value="#answers.id[rowNumber]#" />#answers.answer[rowNumber]#<br />
    </cfloop>
</form>
</body>
</cfoutput>
    • 0