ColdFusion MX

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ColdFusion MX

• Rob Filardo and Lindsay Matteo

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A Brief History

• ColdFusion 1.0 was created in 1995 by Adam Berrey
  in order to help HTML programmers create
  database-oriented web applications
• Database connectivity established through a
  tag-based script called Database Markup Language
  (DBML)
• Version 1.5 was a dramatic improvement. Among
  other things, it included email integration and
  C compatibility to allow for coding extensions
• Early on, ColdFusion faced competition from
  Microsoft, which was developing the technology
  that would lead to ASP
• Version 2.0 included such advances as 150 new
  functions, looping, variables, typeless
  expression evaluation, and a number of other
  language enhancements.
• ColdFusion 3.1 offered greater support for
  Windows NT and Sun Solaris systems, and also
  featured automated page generation and tag
  completion. It also included enhanced security
  and a new multi-threading service.
• Now, ColdFusion applications can even be deployed
  on J2EE servers

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About ColdFusion MX

• ColdFusion MX is a rapid scripting environment
  server for creating dynamic Internet
  Applications. It enables developers to easily
  build and deploy things such as dynamic websites,
  self-service applications, and commerce sites.
• ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) is a tag-based
  language, similar to HTML, that uses special tags
  and functions.
• CFML looks similar to HTML--it includes starting
  and, in most cases, ending tags, and each tag is
  enclosed in angle brackets. All ending tags are
  preceded with a forward slash (/) and all tag
  names are preceded with cf for example
• ltcftagnamegt tag body text and CFMLlt/cftagnamegt
  
• CFML provides a layer of abstraction that hides
  many low-level details involved with Internet
  application programming. It lets you easily build
  applications that integrate files, databases,
  legacy systems, mail servers, FTP servers,
  objects, and components.

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ColdFusion Components

• CFML also includes a built-in scripting language,
  CFScript, that lets you write code in a manner
  that is familiar to programmers and JavaScript
  writers.
• You can extend CFML further by creating custom
  tags or user-defined functions (UDFs), or by
  integrating COM, C, and Java components (such
  as JSP tag libraries).
• You can also create ColdFusion components (CFCs),
  which encapsulate related functions and
  properties and provide a consistent interface for
  accessing them.

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CFML Basics

• Functions - can use built in functions or define
  your own. Used to manipulate data and return a
  result.
• Expressions
• Variables and constants
• Flow-control constructs such as if-then and
  loops. CFML is an imperative language.
• CFML control tags are very similar to Java
  control words cfif, cfelse, cfelseif, cfswitch,
  cfbreak, cfcase, cflooprecognize any of those?
• The cf loop tag provides five types of loops
  index (kind of like a for loop), conditional,
  query (runs through loop once for each row in a
  query), list (runs through loop once for each
  entry in a list perhaps like an iterator), and
  collection.

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CFML Oddities

• CFML is case insensitive
• CFML is typeless you do not specify variable
  data types. Although, CFML data falls into the
  following categories simple (boolean values,
  numbers, strings, etc.), complex (arrays,
  structures, queries), binary (such as the
  contents of a .gif file), object (like Java,
  CORBA or ColdFusion component objects)
• CFML has a language within it! CFScript is a
  scripting language that is similar to JavaScript
  but is simpler to use. Also, unlike JavaScript,
  CFScript only runs on the ColdFusion server it
  does not run on the client system.
• Java now has interfaces for building ColdFusion
  custom CFXs in Java! Interfaces such as the
  Query interface allows the user to iterate
  through query rows and columns.

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How ColdFusion Pages are Processed
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Common CFML TagsSource www.macromedia.com
Tag Purpose
cfquery Establishes a connection to a database (if one does not exist), executes a query, and returns results to the ColdFusion environment.
cfoutput Displays output that can contain the results of processing ColdFusion functions, variables, and expressions.
cfset Sets the value of a ColdFusion variable.
cfmail Lets an application send SMTP mail messages using application variables, query results, or server files. (Another tag, cfpop, gets mail.)
cfchart Converts application data or query results into graphs, such as bar charts or pie charts, in Flash, JPG, or PNG format
cfobject Invokes objects written in other programming languages, including Java objects such as Enterprise JavaBeans or Common CORBA objects
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There are CFML tags built in for

• Manipulating variables
• Creating interactive forms
• Accessing and manipulating databases
• Displaying data
• Controlling the flow of execution on the
  ColdFusion page
• Handling errors
• Processing ColdFusion pages
• Managing the CFML application framework
• Manipulating files and directories
• Using external tools and objects, including
  Verity collections, COM, Java, and CORBA objects,
  and executable programs

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Custom Tags

• ColdFusion lets you create custom tags. You can
  create two types of custom tags
• 1. CFML custom tags that are ColdFusion pages
• 2. CFX tags that you write in a programing
  language such as Java or C
• Custom tags can encapsulate frequently used code.
  These tags enable you to place this code in one
  place and call it from many places.
• Custom tags also let you abstract complex logic
  into a single, simple interface.

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CF Application Example Top

• The top portion of the application has two text
  form fields. The Name field accepts a name up
  to 20 characters long, while the Zip Code field
  checks to see if integers are entered in a zip
  code pattern.
• Both of these forms are required, and a popup
  notification appears when information has not
  been entered.

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CF Application Example Middle

• The center portion of the application comes into
  view once the submit button has been pressed.
• The form variables that were entered in the text
  fields are printed, as shown in the upcoming code.

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CF Application Example Bottom

• The bottom of the application displays the
  contents of a database containing all of the
  previous entries of the form.
• The buttons remove and show the custom tag
  contents to the application.

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• Above is what the custom tag template looks like
  on its own.
• On the right is what the application looks like
  without the code calling the Coldfusion custom
  tag.

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