Create Variables & Set Values with CFSet in CFML

In this tutorial, you'll learn how to create variables, arrays, structures, and more using the cfset tag in CFML.

The Attributes

The two attributes for the cfset tag are:

• variable_name string - The name of the variable; required.
• var - An optional keyword without a value assignment that identifies the variable as being local to a function. This variable will only exist at the time of function invocation.

<cfset var variable_name = value>

Code Examples

Create Numeric & String Variables

<cfset id = 1>
<cfset my_var = "This is a string">

Create Variables with Dynamic Names

<cfset my_var = "my_value">
<cfset "#my_var#" = 7>

Create Arrays

<cfset my_array = ArrayNew(1)>
<cfset my_array = ["A", "B", "C", 1, 2, 3]>

Create Structures

<cfset my_struct = StructNew()>
<cfset StructInsert(my_struct, "id", 1)>
<cfset StructInsert(my_struct, "name", "Orangeable")>

<cfset my_struct = {
	"id" = 1,
	"name" = "Orangeable"
}>

Call Functions

With function calls, the var keyword must be used for local variable assignments and defined at the top of the function. Here's an example:

<cffunction name="myFunc" returnType="string" output="false">
	<cfargument name="message" type="string" required="false">
	<cfset var my_var = "Foo">
	
	<cfreturn my_var & "bar" & " - " & arguments.message>
</cffunction>

<cfset myFunc(message = "Hello There!")>

The output of the resulting function call with be:

Foobar - Hello There!

Conclusion

In this tutorial, you learned about variable assignments with the cfset tag in CFML.