While in general I would not think any ColdFusion function is useless, I've never really thought much of structFind(). StructFind simply returned value of a structure's key. To me - this seemed silly. If you wanted the value of the key - why wouldn't you just get it?

<cfset s = structNew()> <cfset s.name = "Paris Hilton"> <cfset s.gender = "female"> <cfset s.iq = 9 * randRange(1,10) * -1>

<!--- silly! ---> <cfoutput>#structFind(s, "name")#</cfoutput>

<!--- not so silly! ---> <cfoutput>#s.iq#</cfoutput>

Now one could make the point that it would be useful in cases where you don't know the key until runtime, but then you would just use bracket notation:

<!--- still not silly! ---> <cfset key = "gender"> <cfoutput>#s[key]#</cfoutput>

But yesterday on the cfaussie listserv, Mark Mandel shared an interesting, and useful, well, use for the function. I quote him here:

I use StructFind() a lot - simply because I tend to encapsulate struct's behind getter's and setters quite regualrly.

So Inside a CFC you would find me writing:

<cfset thisValue = StructFind(getStruct(), key)>

As ColdFusion doesn't support syntax like:

<cfset thisValue = getStruct()[key]>

Interesting! Has anyone else use the function like this? (Or in some other way?)