Gary Gilbert's Technology Blog

Converting structkeys to lowercase

Wed, 14 Jul 2010 09:49:00 +0200

As you most probably know when you create a structure and don't quote the keys they are automatically converted to uppercase.

When you dump it out you get: and when you serialize it to json all the keys are also uppercase. This can be problematic since JS is case sensitive. You could create your structure with lowercase keys then serializeJSON() will maintain the case of your structure, but if you don't have control of the structure itself you need to do something to to convert only the structure keys to lowercase. As a quick and dirty way of doing this I build a recursive function to do just that. Firstly I ran the structure through SerializeJSON() just in case the structure contained other datatypes that also need to be serialized, I think deserialized the string back into a structure. Make sure you use strict mapping so that the function doesn't try to convert your query back into a query. Then call the recursive function to go through and change all the keys to lowercase. Here is the function:

As you can see it also handles the case where you have an array of structures inside a structure. I've tested it with nested structures that contain arrays of structures and it seems to work just fine. Perhaps you will find it useful for any Ajax stuff you are doing. Happy Coding...

Pushing the Pause Button

Thu, 01 Jul 2010 09:38:00 +0200

As you may have noticed not much has changed on my blog in a while. A couple of entries ago I called it writers block. But it's not really writers block at all. I have been quite busy at work working on several new software features and working on the 4.0 release. But that isn't the reason why I haven't been blogging nor the reason why I haven't yet managed to do the long overdue upgrade from Blog.CFC to Mango (thats been on my TODO list for about 9 months now). The simple matter of fact is I have lost the desire. Without getting personal, lets just say that I currently have a lot of stuff going on in my life that makes 'worrying' about posting fresh content to my blog secondary or event tertiary. Until then... Happy Coding...

Flash 10.1 for Mobile beta

Thu, 27 May 2010 09:29:00 +0200

I read an article yesterday by Nick Saint on Flash for Smartphones, Nick claims that its terrible. He does add the caveat that it's still in beta, and the video he does to show some of the functionality isn't bad, but his speed comparison for page loading between the iPhone and the Nexus is like comparing apples to oranges (no pun intended). [More]

A Long Trip

Sun, 23 May 2010 12:32:00 +0200

Been a long vacation but I am finally heading back home. Just getting ready to pack my suitcases and head home. Funny I decided to check my blog today because I received an error report and I noticed that the front page has that lovely message that there are no blog entries available. I guess I really need to update my blog software so it doesn't show that message and/or make sure that it doesn't have the opption of displaying that horrible message. Monday is back to work day, and I am actually looking forward to it. Sorry for the double post but it seems as though the previous post didn't save correctly. Lets see if this one does.

A Case of Writers Block

Sat, 10 Apr 2010 14:57:00 +0200

It's been awfully quiet on the blogging front here lately and to be perfectly honest I'm having a major case of writers block combined with quite a bit of work both at work and at home. Time, at the moment, is playing against me and robbing me of the energy to sit down and write something that is at least of a quality that I find acceptable. I admire those who, day in and day out, find useful things to blog about, little tidbits of this or that that can be turned into a blog post. It's not particularly easy for me to do that and comes in fits and spurts instead of a steady stream of ideas. At the moment the well is dry as I continue to polish my presentation for CFUnited and tie up loose ends at work as I get ready to go on vacation for 3 weeks in May. I'm hoping my vacation will revitalize my energy so that I can come back to work and family fully recharged.

Solaris 10 No Longer Free

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 13:13:00 +0200

On Tuesday I read an article in the German IT news portal indicating that ~~Sun~~ Oracle has changed the licensing agreement for Solaris 10. It will no longer be free after a 90 day evaluation period, if you wish to continue using the OS you must sign a service contract. Unfortunately I don't know how much the service contract is but the days of free Solaris are over. [More]

Apple iPad plagued with delays

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 14:53:00 +0200

It looks as though Apples new wonder child the iPad is having it's first teething woes even before it's official birth. Both WLAN and UMTS versions of the iPad are supposed to go on sale on April 3rd in the USA but it looks like the more expensive UMTS version will only be available at the end of April. According to a report in digitimes Apple shifted it's orders of the iPad touch screens to another supplier back in March because of reported delays. Additionally Foxconn who is making the iPad for Apple was also not able to meet its production schedule in march either. All the production problems with the iPad certainly won't make those who will undoubtedly go away on day one without one any happier. Those to do manage to get their hands on an iPad will be left waiting for accessories as it appears there are problems there too according to the shipping dates on the Apple Store. Are you going to camp outside of an Apple store to get an iPad?

Coldfusion Builder Released

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 10:00:00 +0200

The title says it all. Adobe's re-entry into the ColdFusion IDE market is official. Although I think most of the developers here at work still use Homesite as their preferred IDE. It's definitely going to be hard if not impossible to get the old die hard Homesite uses to switch. I will probably give CF Builder another try to see if it's improved over Beta versions and at the price of 299 (bundled with Flash builder standard) it is a pretty sweet deal. First try, and then maybe buy

Coldfusion 9 Sharepoint Integration - getListItems

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 15:30:00 +0200

In my previous on the CFSharepoint tag and SharePoint Views we retrieved the meta-data columns for the specified view. Now that we have the columns of the view we can build a CAML query to restrict what is returned when we get all the items of the list. [More]

Thoughs on CeBIT 2010

Thu, 11 Mar 2010 11:41:00 +0200

Last week three of my colleagues an I drove from Munich to Hannover to visit CeBIT. This was my first time at CeBIT so outside of knowing that its a huge exhibit and the little that I read on their website, I didn't have anything else to go on.

CeBIT is the world's largest trade fair showcasing digital IT and telecommunications solutions for home and work environments. The key target groups are users from industry, the wholesale/retail sector, skilled trades, banks, the services sector, government agencies, science and all users passionate about technology. CeBIT offers an international platform for comparing notes on current industry trends, networking, and product presentations. Deutsche Messe AG has organized CeBIT in Hannover each spring since 1986.

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Who is Hosting Railo?

Thu, 25 Feb 2010 13:13:00 +0200

Saw a tweet recently about Hosting for Railo and thought I would post an entry on this subject in hopes of getting a decent list of Railo Hosting Providers. After doing a google search and looking at the hosting provider list on getrailo.org I don't see any other hosting providers Here is what's out there:

Viviotech (hosting and VPS)
Alurium (hosting)

Jassoft

Hostmedia UK

HybridChill

I'm honestly quite surprised the list is so small. If you know of any other companies offering Railo hosting or if you are planning on offering Railo hosting please let me know.

Ask Gary: Spry Tabs

Mon, 22 Feb 2010 09:08:00 +0200

I got an email recently asking me about the little tutorial I wrote some time ago on Spry Tabs with Dynamic Content.

I have been trying to improve my website but the problem I have with Spry Tabs and Dynamic Content is that I don't want the tab to reload every time a user goes back to a previous tab but at the same time when the page loads for the first time I want to take advantage of the click on demand option by only loading the defaults tab. Can you think of a solution. My users scroll between tabs and don't want to lose the search results displayed in each tab.

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Adobe CF XML Issue - Resolved

Fri, 19 Feb 2010 10:48:00 +0200

I just wanted to give a quick update about the XML issue I discovered in Adobe Coldfusion a couple of days ago. According to Adobe the issue has been fixed in ColdFusion 9.0.1 ,Beta 1, Build 271170. In the mean time I will have to use the xmlSearch() function when working with XML documents that may contain underscores. Thanks for fixing this issue Adobe, now when is 9.0.1 going to be available?

Adobe CF XML Issue

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 09:44:00 +0200

While working with an XML document the other day I noticed some "interesting" behavior when trying to access a XML Element that started with an underscore. The XML document is valid, parsed correctly and also displayed correctly when dumping the XML Document out. This issue only showed itself when trying to access the XML Element using dot notation. [More]

Google Chrome For Mac (New Beta)

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 10:53:00 +0200

Back in December I posted about the beta for Google Chrome for the Mac OS being available for download. Well a new Mac Chrome beta is now available for download. [More]