Reading dynamic sql columns in coldfusion

Question

I have a query which has static as well as dynamic columns. something like below:
<cfset vMarks = "marks1, marks2, marks3">
<cfquery name="querymarks" datasource = "abc">
SELECT firstname, lastname,
<cfloop from="1" to="listlen(vMarks)" index="index">
    marks_#index# <cfif #index# NEQ listlen(vMarks)>,</cfif>
</cfloop>
</cfquery>
The query result set will look like below:
firstname lastname  marks1 marks2   marks3 ...
abc        abc         112        113        114
def        def           121        122        123
So when I am using coldfusion to display the above resultset I am doing the below:
<table>
  <tr>
    <td>FIRST NAME</td>
    <td>FIRST NAME</td>
    <td>FIRST NAME</td>
  </tr>
  <cfoutput query="querymarks">
  <tr>
    <td>querymarks.firstname</td>
    <td>querymarks.lastname</td>
    <cfloop from="1" to="listlen(vMarks)" index="index">
     <td>querymarks.marks_#index#</td>
    </cfloop>
  </tr>
  </cfoutput>
</table>
The number of marks column is dynamic but I have a variable which stores the list of marks. I am facing problem in displaying the marks with coldfusion. Can anyone let me know if this can be done?

Answer 1

It's not immediately apparent in the docs, but one can use associative array notation with queries, eg:
myQuery[myColumn][myRow]
Where myQuery is the name of a query variable, myColumn is a column name or a string containing a column name, and myRow is the row number (positive integer) you want.
You can also get query metadata with getMetatdata(myQuery), which lists the columns in the order they were queried for (unlike myQuery.columnList which alphabeticised it, for some stupid reason best known to some Allaire developer of yore).
Adam