Question

What is be the best way to define method level variables scope?

Some ColdFusion documents say it should be done like this:

 <cfset Var testVariable = "this is a local variable">

But others, do it like this:

<cfset LOCAL = StructNew() />
<cfset LOCAL.testVariable  = StructNew() />

Which way is better?

Answer 1

Either will work.

In CF9 (and I assume 10) var local = structNew() is unnecessary (though harmless and makes your code backward compatible) as there is within each function a local scope that contains any locally scoped values. Also with CF8 and earlier these variables will need to be the first thing declared in a function.

So to specifically answer your question I prefer the var local = structNew() (or just var local={}) because:

• It means that locally scoped variables are obviously such (var
  scoping issues can be a pain to debug).
• You can dump or examine the
  local “scope” in cf 8.