Form elements with the same name not accessible using CF MX7

Question

I am using Coldfusion MX7 and have a basic form which can have several elements that are dynamically added to the form. They are given the same name and are all checkboxes. An example of the form is as follows:

<form action="index.cfm?action=index.report" method="post" id="reportForm">
<div class="report my">
    <ul class="connectWith ui-sortable" id="fieldListSelect" aria-disabled="false">
        <li class="field" id="field_profileFn" style="">
            <a class="action" id="action_profileFn" href="index.cfm?action=index.filter.profileFn" style="display: block; ">filter</a> 
            <label for="profileFn">First Name</label>
            <input type="checkbox" name="reportItem" id="profileFn" value="profileFn">
        </li>
        <li class="field" id="field_profileSn" style="">
            <a class="action" id="action_profileSn" href="index.cfm?action=index.filter.profileSn" style="display: block; ">filter</a> 
            <label for="profileSn">Surname</label>
            <input type="checkbox" name="reportItem" id="profileSn" value="profileSn">
        </li>
        <li class="field" id="field_contactDate" style="">
            <a class="action" id="action_contactDate" href="index.cfm?action=index.filter.contactDate" style="display: block; ">filter</a> 
            <label for="contactDate">Contact date</label>
            <input type="checkbox" name="reportItem" id="contactDate" value="contactDate">
        </li>
    </ul>
</div>
</form>

Once the form is posted I get the following through cfdump:

<table class="cfdump_struct">
    <tr><th class="struct" colspan="2" onClick="cfdump_toggleTable(this);" style="cursor:hand;" title="click to collapse">struct</th></tr>

        <tr><td class="struct" onClick="cfdump_toggleRow(this);" style="cursor:hand;" title="click to collapse">CONTACTDATE_FROM</td>
        <td>  Thu May 19 2011 00:00:00 GMT+0100 (GMT Daylight Time) </td></tr> 
        <tr><td class="struct" onClick="cfdump_toggleRow(this);" style="cursor:hand;" title="click to collapse">CONTACTDATE_TO</td>
        <td> Thu May 19 2011 00:00:00 GMT+0100 (GMT Daylight Time) </td></tr> 
        <tr><td class="struct" onClick="cfdump_toggleRow(this);" style="cursor:hand;" title="click to collapse">FIELDNAMES</td>
        <td> REPORTITEM[],CONTACTDATE_FROM,CONTACTDATE_TO </td></tr> 
        <tr><td class="struct" onClick="cfdump_toggleRow(this);" style="cursor:hand;" title="click to collapse">REPORTITEM[]</td>
        <td> profileFn,profileSn,contactDate </td></tr> 
    </table>

The element REPORTITEM[] is reported and in trying to access this as a variable I get:

<cfset testing = form.reportItem[]>

Invalid CFML construct found on line 6 at column 50.

In trying to access the variable in the way I would expect I get the following:

<cfset testing = form.reportItem>

Element REPORTITEM is undefined in FORM.

I have inherited this code and it MUST have worked previously. Coldfusion has not been upgraded (obviously being CF 7 still) and nothing else has changed server side that I can think of.

My questions:

• Is this just a limitation of CF7?
• This should work right or is this totally wrong?
• I am going to have to re-write quite a bit of this code if this just doesn't work, handling this after the data has been posted would be easier to code. Modifying the form will be more effort, so is it possible?

Answer 1

Try doing

<cfset testing = form["reportItem[]"]>

This will fetch the form struct by the key "reportItem[]".