How to determine?

Question

If I have a form that say, requests users to type in
adddress1 and
address 2.
Address 2 isn't 'required', but address 1 is.
I have the form field named as address_2 and on the
processing page, I
also have it set to a <cfparam name="form.Address2"
default=""> so if
the user doesn't enter anything, a blank goes into the db.
Now I can't use a isdefined() to test if its got a value,
because its
set to "" by default, and I can't use
structkeyexists(form,"address_2")
as the form is sending that info, correct?
I've tried both ways, and about the only way to do a test on
the field
is by lenght....or am I missing something?

Answer 1

you don't really need that <cfparam>. if a text input
is not filled out, it's still passed to the form's action page with
an empty string as the value.
you can test for the length of the string. <cfif
len(trim(form.address_2)) GT 0> do stuff </cfif>
if you're using cfqueryparam, you can do:
<cfqueryparam value="#form.address_2#"
cfsqltype="cf_sql_varchar" null="#yesNoFormat(NOT
len(trim(form.address_2)))#" />