[thelist] nesting structures in ColdFusion

[Steve Lewis]

I am a php/mysql weenie who is learning ColdFusion now, and I made the
mistake of assuming that nested structures could be interated through
using cfloop the way you can in most other languages I know...

[begin broken example]
<cfset mystruct = StructNew()>
  <cfset mystruct.sub1 = StructNew()>
    <cfset mystruct.sub1.name = "name_1">
    <cfset mystruct.sub1.favcolor = "color_1">
  <cfset mystruct.sub2 = StructNew()>
    <cfset mystruct.sub2.name = "name_2">
    <cfset mystruct.sub2.favcolor = "color_2">
   
<cfloop collection="#mystruct#" item="curritem">
  <cfoutput>
    #curritem.name#'s favorite color is #curritem.favcolor#<br>
  </cfoutput>
</cfloop>
[end broken example]

This does not work because #curritem# is a string containing the value of
the key, not the value itself, and not a pointer to the value, and not an
object reference... three things I am accostomed to dealing with.  Why
does it treat curritem as a string?  I dont like it, but dem's tuff luck.

So with the patient help of an experienced ColdFusion user, I find myself
looking at the following:

[begin working example]
<cfloop collection="#mystruct#" item="curritem">
  <cfset thecollection = 'mystruct.'&curritem>
    <cfloop collection="#Evaluate(thecollection)#" item="newitem">
      <cfoutput>#thecollection#.#newitem#
        =#Evaluate(thecollection&'.'&newitem)#</cfoutput><br>
      </cfloop><br><br>
</cfloop>
[end working example]

Now my problem is that this feels like a *hack* to me as I have personal
issues with the evaluate() function... in fairness I consider the PHP
equivalent to be perfectly fine.  (It's just a matter of taste over
language semantics.)

My challenge:  
can anyone show me how to do the above more "elegantly" or  whatever?

thanks,
--Steve