Populate object with multidimensional menu

Question

I'm wondering if there is an effective way to put a menu into an array or any other data type. With php I would do something like this:

$menu[1] = "home";
$menu[2] = "news";
$menu[3]["item"] = "products";
$menu[3]["subMenu"][1] = "jackets";
$menu[3]["subMenu"][2] = "T-shirts";
$menu[4] = "contact";

However I have no clue how one would do this in coldfusion. I want to grab this data from the DB and push it into an object, this will allow me to generate the html from the array.

Answer 1

It's actually very similar. This presumes ColdFusion 8 (or higher) for array ([]) and struct ({}) literals:

<cfset menu = [] /> <!--- Create initial array --->

<cfset menu[1] = "home" />
<cfset menu[2] = "news" />
<cfset menu[3] = {} /> <!--- Create structure --->
<cfset menu[3]["item"] = "products" /> <!--- Address structure by key --->
<cfset menu[3]["subMenu"] = [] />
<cfset menu[3]["subMenu"][1] = "jackets" />
<cfset menu[3]["subMenu"][2] = "T-shirts" />
<cfset menu[4] = "contact" />

<cfdump var="#menu#" /> <!--- Output --->

Hope that helps!

Answer 2

To take Ciaran's answer a step farther, you can do it completely with object literals in CF 9:

<cfset menu = ["home",
               "news",
               {"item"="products",
               "subMenu"= ["jackets",
                           "T-shirts"]},
               "contact"]>
<cfdump var="#menu#" /> <!--- Output --->