conditonal string concatenation

what's the deal with it?

i'm trying to create a string from a query to be used later on in an sql statement, so i need to remove null values from the list.

heres the code i'm having problems with.

        <cfquery name="affectedLinks" datasource="pad">
            SELECT    *
            FROM    page_links
            WHERE    Child_ID IN (15491,622,15490)
        </cfquery>

        <cfoutput query="affectedLinks">
        pid    #parent_ID#<br>
        cid #child_ID#<br>
        <cfif type GT ''>type #type#<br></cfif>
        <cfif label GT ''>label #label#<br></cfif>
        <cfif Sort_Order GT ''>sort #sort_order#<br></cfif><br>
            
            <cfset tempstring = "Parent_ID = #parent_ID# AND Child_ID = #Child_ID# <cfif type GT ''>AND Type = #Type#</cfif> <cfif label GT ''>AND Label = #Label#</cfif> <cfif Sort_Order GT ''>AND Sort_Order = #Sort_Order#</cfif>">
            <cfset temp = arrayAppend(original_connections, #tempstring#)>
        </cfoutput>

Code (markup):

when i output the values based on whether or not they are GT '' it works fine.. but when i attempt to set the string based on it it doesn't..

i.e. given this row Parent_ID = 15, Child_ID = 622, Type = null, label = somelabel, sort_order = null

i get this output from the first part

Parent_ID = 15
Child_ID = 622
label = somelabel


but the tempstring comes out as
'Parent_ID = 15 AND Child_ID = 622 AND Type = AND label = somelabel AND sort_order ='
which will break my query later on..

i've also tried this, but it throws an error

<cfset tempstring = "Parent_ID = #parent_ID# AND Child_ID = #Child_ID#" <cfif type GT ''>& "AND Type = #Type#"</cfif> <cfif label GT ''>& "AND Label = #Label#"</cfif> <cfif Sort_Order GT ''>& "AND Sort_Order = #Sort_Order#"</cfif>>

Code (markup):

my next step is to create a different tempstring depending on which attributes aren't null.. i don't want to do that.. so does anybody know a way to make this work?

 

i figured out a decent way to do it..


for anyone who might want to do the same thing

<cfset tempstring = "Parent_ID=#parent_ID# AND Child_ID=#Child_ID#"> 
<cfif Type GT ""><cfset tempstring = tempstring & " AND Type=#Type#"></cfif> 
<cfif Label GT ""><cfset tempstring = tempstring & " AND Label=#Label#"></cfif> 
<cfif Sort_Order GT ""><cfset tempstring = tempstring & " AND Sort_Order=#Sort_Order#"></cfif>
<cfset temp = arrayAppend(original_connections, #tempstring#)>

Code (markup):