Searching for clean code

Question

Please help the ignorant...
I know there has to be a cleaner way to do this.
First of all, if you have a date field that is empty, the
database records 1900-01-01 00:00:00.0. So...i certainly dont need
to show this in my form.
Secondly, i know there is a smarter way so i dont need to
write a cfinput 3 times. I am hoping for ... more like once...
Thirdly, if there is anything else that you can pick out of
this that i am not advanced enough to see, that would be GREAT!
I thank you in advance for any efforts on my behalf...
Matt

Answer 1

Yes, you could make it a little "cleaner", but it's not bad.
The logic is fine.
You can however, consolidate a few things and in doing so,
separate the logic from the presentation a bit (always a good thing
to do). Look for things that are common among all the
<cfinput> tags. For example, the message is the same for each
version of your <cfinput> tag. Good practice would be to
create a single copy of the message and then use it in the three
places. That way, if you have to change the message, you only have
to change it in one place. Like this:
<cfset variables.errMsg = "The last field that you have
entered, requires a valid date">
Then, within each <cfinput> tag, do:
message="#variables.errMsg#". (BTW, you can make your messge more
succinct. Do you really need to say "the last field you entered"?
After all, this message pops on-blur, so the user knows which
field.)
You could do the same for the other attributes. However, I
notice that all three instances of the <cfinput> tag have the
same attributes, except for the value attribute. But, the tags that
have no value attribute could have been written with value="". If
they were written that way, then the only difference between the
tags is the value of the "value" attribute. I'll show you how to
exploit that, below.
If you are sure that the query always returns a single
record, then you can eliminate the <cfoutput query=...>
element. That save two lines. (if you're not sure, then you should
add some error-checking.)
Also, your if-then should have an else clause. What happens
if the action is something other than "existing" or "new"? You
might say that could never happen, but you might have an error in
your program, or a user could submit his own form to this page with
the wrong action value. Usually, the last thing that a programmer
adds is error-checking. Here, you could add '<cfelse>Unknown
action: <cfoutput>#action#</cfoutput></cfif>'
which might come in handy while developing the program (or you
could put a <cfthrow> tag in there and throw your own
exception). Alternatively, just eliminate the 'action is "new"'
condition. That way, all actions, other than "existing", are
treated as "new".
Taking it all together, here is another way to write your
code. Notice how the logic is separated from the presentation: