One of the handier recent additions to ColdFusion was the ability to use ++ and -- operators. For example, to add one to x you can either do: x=x+1. Or the quicker: x++. However, don't forget that you can also do ++x. What's the difference? Well it's pretty important.

When we say x++, the result of that expression would be the original value of x, before 1 is added to it. Consider:

This will print out 1 to the screen, but if you follow it up with:

you will see 2. In other words, the expression as a whole "worked" in that it added one to the value, but the returned value was the original value.

If you want to both add one to a value, and return the result after the addition, you would use the reverse form.

Why bring this up? I was working with the parseExcel function (just released on CFLib) and noticed it returned 2 of my Excel sheets 3 arrays. Why? This one line:

The fix was to just reverse the plus signs.

An easy way to remember this would be to see that the + signs are first, which you can read as "plus first, then return".