Adobe ColdFusion 8

ListContains

Description

Determines the index of the first list element that contains a specified substring.

Returns

Index of the first list element that contains substring. If not found, returns zero.

Category

List functions

Function syntax

ListContains(list, substring [, delimiters ])

See also

ListContainsNoCase, ListFind; "Lists" in the ColdFusion Developer's Guide

Parameters

Parameter

Description

list

A list or a variable that contains one.

substring

A string or a variable that contains one. The search is case-sensitive.

delimiters

A string or a variable that contains one. Character(s) that separate list elements. The default value is comma.

If this parameter contains more than one character, ColdFusion processes each occurrence of each character as a delimiter.

Usage

ColdFusion ignores empty list elements; thus, the list "a,b,c,,,d" has four elements.

Example

<!--- This example shows differences between ListContains and ListFind --->
<!--- Create a list composed of the elements one, two, three. ---->
<cfset aList = "one">
<cfset aList = ListAppend(aList, "two")>
<cfset aList = ListAppend(aList, "three")>
<p>Here is a list: <cfoutput>#aList#</cfoutput>
<p><strong>ListContains</strong> checks for substring "wo" in the list elements:
<cfoutput>
    <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Substring "wo" is in 
    <B>element #ListContains(aList, "wo")#</B> of list.
</cfoutput>
<p>ListFind cannot check for a substring within an element; therefore, in the 
    code, it does not find substring "wo" (it returns 0):
<cfoutput>
    <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Substring "wo" is in <b>element #ListFind(aList, "wo")#
    </b> of the list.</cfoutput>
<p><p>If you specify a string that exactly equals an entire list element, such
    as "two", both ListContains and ListFind find it, in the second element:
    <p>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<strong>ListContains</strong>: 
<cfoutput>
The string "two" is in <b>element #ListContains(aList, "two")#</b> of the list.
</cfoutput>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<p><strong>ListFind</strong>: 
<cfoutput>
The string "two" is in <b>element #ListFind(aList, "two")#</b> of the list.
</cfoutput>