CFML Value Array

Occasionally in the CFML Slack channel (and the IRC room before it) someone asks about a valueArray() function - what they mean is that they want something like the terribly named valueList() that you can provide a query and a column and get a column slice which will return an array instead of a CFML list. valueArray() exists on Lucee but for ACF you’re stuck implementing it for yourself. Here is a way to do that properly (it’s easy to do it naively wrong).

// ACF only, lucee already has a valueArray function
function valueArray (required query q, required string column) {
	var output = [];
	output.addAll(q[column]);
	return output;
}

This requires dropping down into java reflection territory, but the benefit is that it actually adds things to the array directly, value by value. This means that everything works no matter what the value is - commas in the values are problematic for using valueList() and then something like listToArray().

You can see it in action on trycf.

2015-02-16 Update: this just in, ACF 2016 has added valueArray() - with the same signature and everything. This function will still be useful for earlier versions though.