cfgrid

Last update:

May 18, 2026

FORMAT="applet" HAS BEEN DEPRECATED

For a full list of deprecated features, refer to Deprecated features.

Description

Used in the cfform tag. Puts a grid control (a table of data) in a ColdFusion form. To specify grid columns and row data, use the cfgridcolumn and cfgridrow tags, or use the query attribute, with or without cfgridcolumn tags.

For CFC methods that returns numeric data with a leading zero, for example, zip code 02674, the zero is interpreted by the bind expression as an octal number and its decimal equivalent (in this case 1468) even if you set returnformat="string". To resolve this issue, for URL binds or binds routed by way of a JavaScript function (for example, using cfajaxproxy), you can set returnformat=plain to retain the numeric value. Also, leading zeros are stripped from the suggestion list for autosuggest controls.

Syntax

<cfgrid>

name="name"

appendKey="yes|no"

autoWidth="yes|no"

bgColor="web color"

bind="bind expression"

bindOnLoad="yes|no"

bold="yes|no"

colHeaderBold="yes|no"

colHeaderFont="font_name"

colHeaderFontSize="size"

colHeaderItalic="yes|no"

colHeaderTextColor="web color"

collapsible="false|true"

delete="yes|no"

deleteButton="text"

enabled="yes|no"

font="column_font"

fontSize="size"

format="html|xml"

gridDataAlign="left|right|center"

groupfield="column name"

height="integer"

href="URL"

hrefKey="column_name"

hSpace="integer"

insert="yes|no"

insertButton="text"

italic="yes|no"

maxRows="number"

multirowselect="yes|no"

notSupported="text"

onBlur="ActionScript"

onChange="ActionScript or bind expression"

onError="JavaScript function name"

onFocus="ActionScript function"

onLoad="JavaScript function name"

onValidate="JavaScript function name"

pageSize="number of rows"

preservePageOnSort="yes|no"

query="query name"

resetHead="true|false"

rowHeight="pixels"

selectColor="web color"

selectMode="mode"

selectOnLoad="yes|no"

stripeRowColor="web color"

stripeRows="yes|no"

style= "style specification"

target="URL_target"

textColor="web color"

title="text"

tooltip="text"

visible="yes|no"

width="integer">

<cfgrid>

zero or more cfgridcolumn and cfgridrow tags

You can specify this tag's attributes in an attributeCollection attribute whose value is a structure. Specify the structure name in the attributeCollection attribute and use the tag's attribute names as structure keys.

History

ColdFusion (2025 release):

Changed default value of format to html.
Removed the following attributes:
- align
- colHeaderAlign
- colHeader
- gridLines
- highlightHref
- space
- notSupported
- pictureBar
- rowHeaderAlign
- rowHeaderBold
- rowHeaderFont
- rowHeaderFontSize
- rowHeaderItalic
- rowHeaders
- rowHeaderTextColor
- sortAscendingButton
- sortDescendingButton
- Sort
- vSpace

ColdFusion 11 Update 11: Added the attribute resetHead.

ColdFusion 9.0.1: Added the attribute multirowselect , supported only in HTML grids.

ColdFusion 9:

Added collapsible, groupfield , onLoad, and title attributes, supported in HTML grids only.
Added ability to use the insert attribute in HTML grids. ColdFusion 8: Added support for HTML format grids, including the html value of the format attribute and the following attributes: bind, bindOnLoad, pageSize, preservePageOnSort, stripeRows, stripeRowColor.ColdFusion MX 7.01: Added support for the onBlur and onFocus events.ColdFusion MX 7:
Added the format attribute and support for Flash and XML output.
Added enabled, onChange, style, tooltip, and visible attributes (Flash format only). ColdFusion MX: Changed the rowHeaderWidth attribute: ColdFusion does not use the rowHeaderWidth attribute. You can omit it.

Attributes

Attribute	Req/Opt; formats	Default	Description
name	Required; all		Name of the grid control.
appendKey	Optional;HTML	yes	yes: when used with href, appends "CFGRIDKEY=" and information about the selected items. For details, see the section Using the href attribute. no
autoWidth	Optional;HTML	no	yes: sets column widths so that all columns display within the grid width. Widths are equal or the proportions are determined by the relative cfgridcolumn width attribute values. Horizontal scroll bars are not available. no: sets columns to equal widths or the values specified in the cfgridcolumn width attributes.
bgColor	Optional; all		Background color of the control. For most formats, can be a hexa-decimal format or a named color. For a hexadecimal value, use the form "##xxxxxx", where x = 0-9 or A-F; use two number signs or none. For a list of the supported named colors, see cfchart. Limitations: for HTML format, must be a valid web color; for Flash format, must be a hexadecimal value. Flash format only: to specify background colors for alternating rows, separate the two colors with a comma.
bind	Optional; HTML		A bind expression used to fill the contents of the grid. Cannot be used with the query attribute. For more information, see Binding data to form fields in Using Ajax Data and Development Features in the Developing ColdFusion Applications.
bindOnLoad	Optional; HTML	yes	yes: executes the bind attribute expression when first loading the form. no: does not execute the bind attribute expression until the first bound event. Ignored if there is no bind attribute. For more information, see Using the bindOnLoad attribute in Using Ajax form controls and features inthe Developing ColdFusion Applications.
bold	Optional; all	no	yes: displays text in bold. no
colHeaderBold	Optional; all	no	yes: displays column headers in bold. no
colHeaderFont	Optional; all		Font of column header.
colHeaderFontSize	Optional; all		Size of column header text, in points.
colHeaderItalic	Optional; all	no	yes: displays column headers in italic. no
colHeaderTextColor	Optional; all		Color of column headers. Options: same as for textColor attribute.
collapsible	Optional; HTML	False	A Boolean value specifying whether the user can collapse the entire grid by clicking an arrow on the title bar. Specifying this attribute adds a title bar to the grid.
delete	Optional;HTML	no	yes: users can delete row data from the grid; takes effect only if selectmode="edit". no
deleteButton	Optional;HTML	Delete	Text for the Delete button; takes effect only if selectmode="edit".
enabled	Optional;Flash	yes	Flash format only: Boolean value that specifies whether the control is enabled. A disabled control appears in light gray.
font	Optional; all		Font of text.
fontSize	Optional; all		Size of text, in points.
format	Optional; all	html	html: generates an AJAX-based HTML grid control that supports data binding. xml: generates an XML representation of the grid. In XML format forms, includes the generated XML in the form. In HTML format forms, puts the XML in a string variable with the name specified by the name attribute.
gridDataAlign	Optional;	left	left: left-aligns data within the column. right: right-aligns data within the column. center: centers data within the column.
groupField	Optional; HTML	Don't group	Puts the grid rows into groups, organized by the column specified in this attribute. Each group is collapsible and has a header with the column name, group field value, and number of entries in the group. If you set this option, the column pull-down menu shows two grouping options: The show in Groups option turns column grouping on and off. The Group By This Field option sets the grouping to use the selected column. Users display the pull-down menu by moving the mouse over a column head and clicking the down arrow that appears You can use this attribute with static grids only, do not use it with dynamic grids that get their data using bind expressions.
height	Optional; all	300	Height of the control, in pixels. If you omit the attribute in Flash format, the grid sizes automatically.
href	Optional;HTML		URL or name of a query column that contains URLs to hyperlink each grid cell with.
hrefKey	Optional;HTML		A query column to use for the value appended to the href URL of each cell, if appendKey="True". If you use cfgridcolumn tags, the column must be specified in one of these tags.
hSpace	Optional;		Horizontal space to the left and right of the control, in pixels.
insert	Optional;HTML	no	yes: users can insert row data in the grid; takes effect only if selectmode="edit". no
insertButton	Optional;	Insert	Text for the Insert button; takes effect only if selectmode="edit".
italic	Optional; all	no	yes: displays text in italic. no
maxRows	Optional; all		Maximum number of rows to display in the grid.
multirowselect	Optional; HTML	no	Allows selection of multiple rows. This is particularly useful in the cases where batch processing is required, for example, moving multiple records at a time. If yes, a check box appears as the first column of the grid, enabling selection of multiple records. A Select All/Deselect All option also appears. Note: If multirowselect="yes", then row data is sent as an array of structs as opposed to a struct if mutirowselect="no". Also, if the grid data is manipulated by the user, for example, using JavaScript, to move records when a button is clicked, set the method to POST. This is required as a GET method imposes restrictions on the amount of data that can be sent.
onBlur	Optional, Flash		ActionScript that runs when the grid loses focus.
onChange	Optional;HTML, Flash		Flash format: ActionScript to run when the control changes due to user action in the control.HTML format: Required for HTML format grids that specify a bind attribute and a selectMode value of edit. A bind expression that calls a CFC method, JavaScript function, or URL to update the data source. If a URL is called, since the data is passed in JSON format to the URL page, use the function DeserializeJSON. The arguments cfgridrow and cfgridchanged must be serialized to JSON strings if a JavaScript bind is used to pass these arguments to a URL.
onError	Optional;HTML		In HTML format grids, name of a JavaScript function to execute if an error occurs.
onFocus	Optional,Flash		ActionScript that runs when the grid gets focus.
onLoad	Optional		A custom JavaScript function to execute when the grid is loaded and rendered.
onValidate	Optional;		A JavaScript function to validate user input. The form object, input object, and input object value are passed to the function, which must return true if validation succeeds; false otherwise.
pageSize	Optional;HTML	10	The number of rows to display per page for a dynamic grid. If the number of available rows exceeds the page size, the grid displays only the specified number of entries on a single page, and the user navigates between pages to show all data. The grid retrieves data for each page only when it is required for display. This attribute is ignored if you specify a query attribute.
preservePageOnSort	Optional; HTML	no	Specifies whether to display the page with the current page number, or display page 1, after sorting (or resorting) the grid. If this attribute is yes, selections are preserved when the grid sorts.
query	Optional; all		Name of the query associated with the control. Cannot be used with the bind attribute.
resetHead	Optional; HTML		If true then clears <head> tag.
rowHeight	Optional XML		Minimum row height, in pixels. Used with cfgridcolumn type = "Image"; defines space for graphics to display in row.
selectColor	Optional; all		Background color for a selected item. Options: same as for textColor attribute
selectMode	Optional; all		Selection mode for items in the control. Edit: the user can edit grid data. Selecting a cell lets the user edit the cell. Row: user selections automatically extend to the row that contains selected cell. Single: user selections are limited to the selected cell. Column: user selections automatically extend to the column that contains selected cell. Browse: the user can only browse grid data.
selectOnLoad	Optional; HTML	yes	yes: selects the first row of the grid when the gird loads. no: does not select any rows when the grid loads.
stripeRowColor	Optional; HTML		The color to use for one of the alternating stripes. The bgColor setting determines the other color.
stripeRows	Optional; HTML	no	Boolean value that indicates whether to make the rows stripes in alternating colors.
style	Optional;Flash		Must be a style specification in CSS format. Ignored for type="text".
target	Optional;HTML,		The target frame or window in which to display the href URL; for example, "_blank".
textColor	OptionalFlash,		Color of text. Can be a hexadecimal value or a named color. For a hexadecimal value, use the form "##xxxxxx", where x = 0-9 or A-F; use two number signs or none. For a list of the supported named colors, see cfchart.
title	Optional; HTML		Text to display as a title at the top of the grid. Specifying this attribute adds a title bar to the grid.
tooltip	Optional;Flash		Flash format only: text to display when the mouse pointer hovers over the control.
visible	Optional;Flash	yes	Flash format only: Boolean value that specifies whether to show the control. Space that would be occupied by an invisible control is blank.
width	Optional; all	300	Width of the control.

Usage

Most of the following paragraphs describe grid features that apply to all, or at least two, grid formats. For information that is specific to Flash forms, see Creating Forms in Flash in the Developing ColdFusion Applications. For information that is specific to HTML format grids, see Using HTML grids in the Developing ColdFusion Applications.
This tag must be in a cfform tag block.

If you specify Flash format for this tag in an HTML format form, and you do not specify height and width attributes, Flash takes up more than the remaining visible area on the screen. If any other output follows the grid, including any form controls, users must scroll to see it. Therefore, if you follow a Flash grid in an HTML form with additional output, specify height and width values.

You can populate a cfgrid with data from a cfquery . If you do not specify any cfgridcolumn tags in the cfgrid body, ColdFusion generates a grid with the following:

A column for each column in the query.
A default header for each column, created by replacing hyphen or underscore characters in the table column name with spaces. The first character, and any character after a space, are changed to uppercase; all other characters are lowercase.

This tag requires an end tag.
Note: Clicking the submit button while editing a grid cell occasionally causes the cell changes to be lost. To ensure that changes are submitted properly, Adobe recommends that after user updates data in a cell, they click another cell before submitting the form.

Returning cfgrid data to the action page

The following information applies to all cfgrid formats. Also, HTML format grids can dynamically get data by using a bind expression. For more information, see Using HTML grids in the Developing ColdFusion Applications.
When a user submits a form, the cfgrid tag sends information about user actions by setting form variables in the data submitted to the form's action page. Because the data can vary, depending on the tag's SelectMode attribute value, the form variables that are returned also vary depending on this value. In general, the data returned falls into one of these categories:

Simple data, returned from simple select operations
Complex data, returned from insert, update, and delete operations

Simple selection data (SelectMode = Single, Column, or Row)

The data that form variables return to the cfform's action page contains information about which cells the user selected. In general, ColdFusion makes this data available in the action page, as ColdFusion variables in the Form scope, with the naming convention form.#GridName#.#ColumnName#.}}Each {{SelectMode returns these form variables:

SelectMode="single" 

form.#GridName#.#ColumnName# = "SelectedCellValue" 

SelectMode="column" 

form.#GridName#.#ColumnName# = "ValueOfCellRow1, 

ValueOfCellRow2, ValueOfCellRowN" 

SelectMode="row" 

form.#GridName#.#Column1Name# = "ValueOfCellInSelectedRow" 

form.#GridName#.#Column2Name# = "ValueOfCellInSelectedRow" 

form.#GridName#.#ColumnNName# = "ValueOfCellInSelectedRow"

Complex update data (SelectMode = Edit)

The grid returns a large amount of data, to inform the action page of inserts, updates, or deletes that the user made to the grid. In most cases, you can use the cfgridupdate tag to automatically gather the data from the form variables; the tag collects data, writes SQL calls, and updates the data source. If you cannot use cfgridupdate (if, for example, you must distribute the returned data to more than one data source), write code to read form variables. In this mode, ColdFusion creates the following array variables in the Form scope for each cfgrid:

form.#GridName#.#ColumnName#

form.#GridName#.original.#ColumnName#

form.#GridName#.RowStatus.Action

Each table row that contains an update, insert, or deletion has a parallel entry in each of these arrays. To view all the information for all the changes, you can traverse the arrays, as in this example. To make it work with a cfgrid on a submitted cfform, set the GridName variable to the name of the grid and the ColNameList to a list of the grid columns.

<cfloop index="ColName" list="#ColNameList#"> 

<cfif IsDefined("form.#GridName#.#ColName#")> 

<cfoutput><br>form.#GridName#.#ColName#:<br></cfoutput> 

<cfset Array_New = form[#GridName#][#ColName#]> 

<cfset Array_Orig = form[#GridName#][original][#ColName#]> 

<cfset Array_Action = form[#GridName#]RowStatus.Action> 

<cfif NOT IsArray(Array_New)> 

<b>The form variable is not an array!</b><br> 

<cfelse> 

<cfset size = ArrayLen(Array_New)> 

<cfoutput> 

Result Array Size is #size#.<br> 

Contents:<br> 

</cfoutput> 

<cfif size IS 0> 

<b>The array is empty.</b><br> 

<cfelse> 

<table BORDER="yes"> 

<tr> 

<th>Loop Index</TH> 

<th>Action</TH> 

<th>Old Value</TH> 

<th>New Value</TH> 

</tr> 

<cfloop index="LoopCount" from="1" to=#size#> 

<cfset Val_Orig = Array_Orig[#LoopCount#]> 

<cfset Val_New = Array_New[#LoopCount#]> 

<cfset Val_Action = Array_Action[#LoopCount#]> 

<cfoutput> 

<tr> 

<td>#LoopCount#</td> 

<td>#Val_Action#</td> 

<td>#Val_Orig#</td> 

<td>#Val_New#</td> 

</tr> 

</cfoutput> 

</cfloop> 

</table> 

</cfif> 

</cfif> 

<cfelse> 

<cfoutput>form.#GridName#.#ColName#: NotSet!</cfoutput><br> 

</cfif> 

</cfloop>

Using the href attribute

When specifying a URL with grid items using the href attribute, the selectMode attribute value determines whether the appended key value is limited to one grid item or extends to a grid column or row. When a user clicks a linked grid item, a cfgridkey variable is appended to the URL, in this form:

http://myserver.com?cfgridkey=selection

If the appendKey attribute is set to no, no grid values are appended to the URL. The value of selection is determined by the value of the selectMode and attribute:

If you specify a hrefKey attribute, selection is the field value of the column specified by the attribute. Otherwise, it is one of the following:
If selectMode="Single", selection is the value of the column clicked.
If selectMode="Row", selection is a comma-delimited list of column values in the clicked row, beginning with the value of the first cell in the row.
If selectMode="Column", selection is a comma-delimited list of row values in the clicked column, beginning with the value of the first cell in the column. When you use an href attribute, you can also specify a target attribute with any of the standard HTML target specifiers, _blank, _parent, _self, and _top, or with a specific frame name.

Enhancements made in ColdFusion 9.0.1

In ColdFusion 9, data for the first row is available on form submission in a form with dynamic grid. In ColdFusion 9.0.1, the data is not available.
If the type is Boolean and selectmode is browse, or select=false, the column is shown as a check box where click does not take effect.

Example

The following example creates a Flash form that displays a set of available courses from the CourseList table in the cfdocexamples database. For more complex examples that use the cfgrid tag, see cfgridcolumn, cfgridrow, and cfgridupdate.

<!--- Query the database to fill up the grid. ---> 

<cfquery name = "GetCourses" dataSource = "cfdocexamples"> 

SELECT Course_ID, Dept_ID, CorNumber, 

CorName, CorLevel 

FROM CourseList 

ORDER by Dept_ID ASC, CorNumber ASC 

</cfquery> 

<h3>cfgrid Example</h3> 

<i>Currently available courses</i> 

<!--- cfgrid must be inside a cfform tag. ---> 

<cfform> 

<cfgrid name = "FirstGrid" format="Flash" 

height="320" width="580" 

font="Tahoma" fontsize="12" 

query = "GetCourses"> 

</cfgrid> 

</cfform>

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