Adobe ColdFusion MX 7.0 User guide

COLDFUSION

®

MX 7

ColdFusion MX Developer’s Guide

Trademarks

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certain jurisdictions including internationally.

This product includes code licensed from RSA Data Security.

Third-Party Information

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Part Number ZCF70M500

Acknowledgments

Project Management: Randy Nielsen

Writing: Hal Lichtin, Randy Nielsen, Robert Berry, Chris Bedford, Anne Sandstrom

Editing: Linda Adler, Noreen Maher

Production Management: Patrice O’Neill

Media Design and Production: John Francis, Adam Barnett

Special thanks to Sawako Gensure, Seungmin Lee, Takashi Koto, Nozomi Kugita, Masayo Noda, Hiroshi Okugawa, Bowne

Global Solutions

First Edition: January 2005

Macromedia, Inc.

600 Townsend St.

San Francisco, CA 94103

3

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION: About ColdFusion MX Documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Using this manual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

CHAPTER 1: Introducing ColdFusion MX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

About Internet applications and web application servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

About ColdFusion MX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

About J2EE and the ColdFusion architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

PART I: The CFML Programming Language

CHAPTER 2: Elements of CFML . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 27

CFML Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Comments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Tags. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

ColdFusion components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Constants . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34

Data types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Flow control . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35

Character case . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Special characters. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

Reserved words . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39

CFScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

CHAPTER 3: Using ColdFusion Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 43

Creating variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Variable characteristics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Data types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45

Strings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47

Using periods in variable references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Data type conversion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59

4 Contents

About scopes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 64

Ensuring variable existence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70

Validating data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

Passing variables to custom tags and UDFs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73

CHAPTER 4: Using Expressions and Number Signs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Using number signs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 81

Dynamic expressions and dynamic variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84

CHAPTER 5: Using Arrays and Structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

About arrays . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 97

Basic array techniques . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Populating arrays with data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 105

Array functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

About structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108

Creating and using structures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111

Structure examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117

Structure functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 121

CHAPTER 6: Extending ColdFusion Pages with CFML Scripting . . . . . . . . . . . 123

About CFScript. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123

The CFScript language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125

Using CFScript statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128

Handling exceptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136

CFScript example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 137

CHAPTER 7: Using Regular Expressions in Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

About regular expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 141

Regular expression syntax . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 143

Using backreferences . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 150

Returning matched subexpressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 153

Regular expression examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 157

Types of regular expression technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

PART II: Building Blocks of ColdFusion Applications

CHAPTER 8: Creating ColdFusion Elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

About CFML elements you create . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 161

Including pages with the cfinclude tag. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 162

About user-defined functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 164

Using ColdFusion components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

Using custom CFML tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 166

Using CFX tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Selecting among ColdFusion code reuse methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 169

Contents 5

CHAPTER 9: Writing and Calling User-Defined Functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

About user-defined functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 171

Creating user-defined functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 172

Calling user-defined functions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Working with arguments and variables in functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 178

Handling errors in UDFs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 186

A user-defined function example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 192

Using UDFs effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 194

CHAPTER 10: Building and Using ColdFusion Components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

About ColdFusion components. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201

Creating ColdFusion components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 204

Using ColdFusion components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216

Passing parameters to methods . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 225

CFC variables and scope . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 227

Using CFCs effectively . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 230

ColdFusion component example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 239

CHAPTER 11: Creating and Using Custom CFML Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Creating custom tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 241

Passing data to custom tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 245

Managing custom tags. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 249

Executing custom tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 250

Nesting custom tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 253

CHAPTER 12: Building Custom CFXAPI Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

What are CFX tags?. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 259

Before you begin developing CFX tags in Java. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 260

Writing a Java CFX tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 261

ZipBrowser example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 264

Approaches to debugging Java CFX tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 266

Developing CFX tags in C++ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 269

PART III: Developing CFML Applications

CHAPTER 13: Designing and Optimizing a ColdFusion Application . . . . . . . . . 275

About applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 275

Elements of a ColdFusion application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 276

Structuring an application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 279

Defining the application and its event handlers in Application.cfc. . . . . . . . . . . . 282

Migrating from Application.cfm to Application.cfc. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 294

Using an Application.cfm page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 295

Optimizing ColdFusion applications. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 298

6 Contents

CHAPTER 14: Handling Errors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

About error handling in ColdFusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 307

Understanding errors. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 308

Error messages and the standard error format . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

Determining error-handling strategies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 314

Specifying custom error messages with the cferror tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 317

Logging errors with the cflog tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 321

Handling runtime exceptions with ColdFusion tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 322

CHAPTER 15: Using Persistent Data and Locking . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 339

About persistent scope variables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 340

Managing the client state. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 342

Configuring and using client variables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 346

Configuring and using session variables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 352

Configuring and using application variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 357

Using server variables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 359

Locking code with cflock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 360

Examples of cflock. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 368

CHAPTER 16: Securing Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 373

ColdFusion security features . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 374

About resource and sandbox security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 375

About user security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 376

Using ColdFusion security tags and functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 381

Security scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 386

Implementing user security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 388

CHAPTER 17: Developing Globalized Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403

Introduction to globalization. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 403

About character encodings. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 406

Locales . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 408

Processing a request in ColdFusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 410

Tags and functions for globalizing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 413

Handling data in ColdFusion MX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 416

CHAPTER 18: Debugging and Troubleshooting Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

Configuring debugging in the ColdFusion MX Administrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 423

Using debugging information from browser pages. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 426

Controlling debugging information in CFML. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 434

Using the cftrace tag to trace execution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 436

Using the cftimer tag to time blocks of code . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 440

Using the Code Compatibility Analyzer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 442

Troubleshooting common problems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 443

Contents 7

PART IV: Accessing and Using Data

CHAPTER 19: Introduction to Databases and SQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

What is a database? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 447

Using SQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 452

Writing queries using an editor . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 460

CHAPTER 20: Accessing and Retrieving Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465

Working with dynamic data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 465

Retrieving data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 466

Outputting query data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 469

Getting information about query results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 471

Enhancing security with cfqueryparam . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 472

CHAPTER 21: Updating Your Database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475

About updating your database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475

Inserting data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 475

Updating data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 480

Deleting data. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 487

CHAPTER 22: Using Query of Queries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

About record sets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 489

About Query of Queries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 491

Query of Queries user guide . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 497

CHAPTER 23: Managing LDAP Directories. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 515

About LDAP. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 516

The LDAP information structure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 517

Using LDAP with ColdFusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 520

Querying an LDAP directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 521

Updating an LDAP directory . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 527

Advanced topics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 538

CHAPTER 24: Building a Search Interface . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547

About Verity . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 547

Creating a search tool for ColdFusion applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 553

Creating a search page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 561

Enhancing search results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 564

Working with data returned from a query . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 572

8 Contents

CHAPTER 25: Using Verity Search Expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581

About Verity query types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 581

Using simple queries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 582

Using explicit queries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 583

Using natural queries. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587

Using Internet queries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 587

Composing search expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 591

Refining your searches with zones and fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 601

PART V: Requesting and Presenting Information

CHAPTER 26: Introduction to Retrieving and Formatting Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . 609

Using forms in ColdFusion MX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 609

Working with action pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 613

Working with queries and data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 617

Returning results to the user . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 621

Dynamically populating list boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 625

Creating dynamic check boxes and multiple-selection list boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . 627

CHAPTER 27: Building Dynamic Forms with cfform Tags. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 631

Creating custom forms with the cfform tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 631

Building tree controls with the cftree tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 634

Building drop-down list boxes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 642

Building slider bar controls . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 643

Creating data grids with the cfgrid tag. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644

Embedding Java applets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 655

CHAPTER 28: Validating Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 659

About ColdFusion MX validation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 659

Validating form fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667

Handling invalid data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 669

Masking form input values . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 670

Validating form data with regular expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 671

Validating form data using hidden fields . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 675

Validating form input and handling errors with JavaScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 680

Validating data with the IsValid function and the cfparam tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 683

CHAPTER 29: Creating Forms in Macromedia Flash. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 687

About Flash forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 687

Building Flash forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 689

Binding data in Flash forms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 699

Setting styles and skins in Flash forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 700

Using ActionScript in Flash forms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 704

Best practices for Flash forms. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 707

Contents 9

CHAPTER 30: Creating Skinnable XML Forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 709

About XML skinnable forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 709

Building XML skinnable forms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 712

ColdFusion XML format. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 715

Creating XSLT skins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 728

CHAPTER 31: Creating Charts and Graphs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 733

About charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 733

Creating a basic chart . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 734

Charting data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 735

Controlling chart appearance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 743

Creating charts: examples . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 751

Administering charts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 756

Writing a chart to a variable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 756

Linking charts to URLs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 758

CHAPTER 32: Creating Reports for Printing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 763

About printable output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 763

Creating PDF and FlashPaper output with the cfdocument tag. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 764

Creating reports with the ColdFusion MX 7 reporting . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 770

Font management with printable reports. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 804

Creating reports with Crystal Reports (Windows only) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 805

CHAPTER 33: Using the Flash Remoting Service . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 807

About using the Flash Remoting service with ColdFusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 807

Configuring the Flash Remoting Gateway. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 809

Using the Flash Remoting service with ColdFusion pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 812

Using Flash with CFCs . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 817

Using the Flash Remoting service with ColdFusion Java objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . 819

Handling errors with ColdFusion and Flash . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 820

CHAPTER 34: Using Server-Side ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823

About server-side ActionScript . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 823

Connecting to the Flash Remoting service. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 826

Using server-side ActionScript functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 827

Global and request scope objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 829

About the CF.query function and data sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 829

Using the CF.query function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 831

Building a simple application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 833

About the CF.http function. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 836

Using the CF.http function . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 837

10 Contents

PART VI: Using Web Elements and External Objects

CHAPTER 35: Using XML and WDDX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 843

About XML and ColdFusion. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 843

The XML document object. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 844

ColdFusion XML tag and functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 850

Using an XML object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 852

Creating and saving an XML document object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 856

Modifying a ColdFusion XML object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 858

Validating XML documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 868

Transforming documents with XSLT. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 869

Extracting data with XPath . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 869

Example: using XML in a ColdFusion application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 870

Moving complex data across the web with WDDX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 875

Using WDDX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 879

CHAPTER 36: Using Web Services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 885

Web services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 885

Working with WSDL files. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 888

Consuming web services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 891

Publishing web services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 898

Using request and response headers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 907

Handling complex data types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 909

Troubleshooting SOAP requests and responses . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 914

CHAPTER 37: Integrating J2EE and Java Elements in

CFML Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 917

About ColdFusion, Java, and J2EE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 917

Using JSP tags and tag libraries . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 921

Interoperating with JSP pages and servlets. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 922

Using Java objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 928

CHAPTER 38: Integrating COM and CORBA Objects in

CFML Applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 945

About COM and CORBA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 945

Creating and using objects. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 947

Getting started with COM and DCOM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 948

Creating and using COM objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 951

Getting started with CORBA . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 961

Creating and using CORBA objects . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 961

CORBA example. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 969

Contents 11

PART VII: Using External Resources

CHAPTER 39: Sending and Receiving E-Mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 973

Using ColdFusion with mail servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 973

Sending e-mail messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 974

Sample uses of the cfmail tag. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 977

Using the cfmailparam tag. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 981

Receiving e-mail messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 983

Handling POP mail . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 985

CHAPTER 40: Interacting with Remote Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 991

About interacting with remote servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 991

Using cfhttp to interact with the web . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 992

Creating a query object from a text file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 994

Using the cfhttp Post method . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 996

Performing file operations with cfftp . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 999

CHAPTER 41: Managing Files on the Server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1003

About file management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1003

Using cffile . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1003

Using cfdirectory. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1012

Using cfcontent. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1014

CHAPTER 42: Using Event Gateways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1019

About event gateways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1020

Event gateway facilities and tools. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1024

Structure of an event gateway application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1027

Configuring an event gateway instance . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1028

Developing an event gateway application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1029

Deploying event gateways and applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1037

Using the CFML event gateway for asynchronous CFCs. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1038

Using the example event gateways and gateway applications . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1040

CHAPTER 43: Using the Instant Messaging Event Gateways . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1047

About ColdFusion and instant messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1047

Configuring an IM event gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1050

Handling incoming messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1052

Sending outgoing messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1053

Sample IM message handling application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1054

Using the GatewayHelper object . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1058

12 Contents

CHAPTER 44: Using the SMS Event Gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1065

About SMS and ColdFusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1065

Configuring an SMS event gateway. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1071

Handling incoming messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1073

Sending outgoing messages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1075

ColdFusion MX SMS development tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1080

Sample SMS application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1082

CHAPTER 45: Creating Custom Event Gateways . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1085

Event gateway architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1085

Event gateway elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1086

Building an event gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1092

Deploying an event gateway . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1100

INDEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1103

13

INTRODUCTION

About ColdFusion MX Documentation

ColdFusion MX Developer’s Guide provides the tools needed to develop Internet applications using

Macromedia ColdFusion MX. This manual is intended for web application programmers who are

learning ColdFusion MX or wish to extended their ColdFusion MX programming knowledge. It

provides a solid grounding in the tools that ColdFusion MX provides to develop web

applications.

Because of the power and flexibility of ColdFusion MX, you can create many different types of

web applications of varying complexity. As you become more familiar with the material presented

in this manual, and begin to develop your own applications, you will want to refer to CFML

Reference for details about various tags and functions.

Contents

Using this manual . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Accessing the ColdFusion MX documentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18

Using this manual

This manual can to help anyone with a basic understanding of HTML learn to develop

ColdFusion MX applications. However, this manual is most useful if you have basic ColdFusion

experience, or have read Getting Started Building ColdFusion MX Applications. The Getting Started

Building ColdFusion MX Applications manual provides an introduction to ColdFusion and helps

you develop the basic knowledge that will make using this manual easier.

Approaches to using this manual

This section describes approaches to using this manual for beginning ColdFusion developers,

developers with some experience who want to develop expertise, and advanced developers who

want to learn about the new and enhanced features of ColdFusion MX.

14 Introduction: About ColdFusion MX Documentation

Beginning with ColdFusion

If you are learning ColdFusion, it might be most effective to read this manual in the following

order:

1.

Chapter 1, “Introducing ColdFusion MX” through Chapter 4, “Using Expressions and

Number Signs” to learn the basics of CFML.

2.

Chapter 19, “Introduction to Databases and SQL” through Chapter 21, “Updating Your

Database” to learn about using databases.

3.

Chapter 26, “Introduction to Retrieving and Formatting Data” and Chapter 27, “Building

Dynamic Forms with cfform Tags” to learn about requesting data from users.

After you read these chapters, you should have a basic understanding of the basic elements of

ColdFusion, and be able to create simple ColdFusion applications. To learn to produce more

complete and robust applications, you could proceed with the following chapters:

4.

Chapter 13, “Designing and Optimizing a ColdFusion Application” through Chapter 18,

“Debugging and Troubleshooting Applications” to learn how to build a complete ColdFusion

application.

5.

Chapter 22, “Using Query of Queries” to learn how to use queries effectively.

6.

Chapter 5, “Using Arrays and Structures” through Chapter 10, “Building and Using

ColdFusion Components” to learn to use more advanced features of CFML, including ways to

reuse code.

You can then read the remaining chapters as you add new features to your ColdFusion

application.

Developing an in-depth knowledge of ColdFusion

If you have a basic understanding of ColdFusion as presented in Getting Started Building

ColdFusion MX Applications or the Fast Track to ColdFusion course, you might want to start at

Chapter 1 and work through to the end of the book, skipping any specialized chapters that you

are unlikely to need.

Learning about new and modified ColdFusion features

If you are an advanced ColdFusion developer, you might want to learn about new or changed

ColdFusion features. The following chapters document features that are new or substantially

enhanced in ColdFusion MX 7:

• Chapter 24, “Building a Search Interface”

• Chapter 25, “Using Verity Search Expressions”

• Chapter 27, “Building Dynamic Forms with cfform Tags”

• Chapter 28, “Validating Data”

• Chapter 29, “Creating Forms in Macromedia Flash”

• Chapter 30, “Creating Skinnable XML Forms”

• Chapter 32, “Creating Reports for Printing”

Using this manual 15

• Chapter 42, “Using Event Gateways”

• Chapter 43, “Using the Instant Messaging Event Gateways”

• Chapter 44, “Using the SMS Event Gateway”

• Chapter 45, “Creating Custom Event Gateways”

Nearly all chapters contain information that is new in ColdFusion MX 7, so you should also

review all other chapters for useful information. The index and the table of contents are useful

tools for finding new features or changed documentation.

Note: If you are moving from ColdFusion 4.5 or 5, start by reading Migrating ColdFusion 5

Applications, available on the Macromedia website.

ColdFusion features described in this manual

ColdFusion provides a comprehensive set of features for developing and managing Internet

applications. These features enhance speed and ease-of-development, and let you dynamically

deploy your applications, integrate new and legacy technologies, and build secure applications.

The following table describes the primary ColdFusion features that are discussed in this manual,

and lists the chapters that describe them. This table is only a summary of major CFML features;

this manual also includes information about other features. Also, this table does not include

features that are described in other manuals.

Feature Description Chapters

CFML CFML is a fully featured tag-oriented Internet application language.

It includes a wide range of tags, functions, variables, and

expressions.

2–5

CFScript CFScript is a server-side scripting language that provides a subset

of ColdFusion functionality in script syntax.

6

Regular

expressions

ColdFusion provides several functions that use regular expressions

for string manipulation. It also lets you use regular expressions in

text input tags.

7, 28

Reusable

elements

ColdFusion lets you create several types of elements, such as user-

defined functions and ColdFusion components, that you write once

and can use many times.

8–12

User-defined

functions

(UDFs)

You can use CFScript or the

cffunction tag to create your own

functions. These functions can incorporate all of the built-in

ColdFusion tags and functions, plus other extensions.

9

ColdFusion

components

ColdFusion components encapsulate multiple functions and

related data in a single logical unit. ColdFusion components can

have many uses, and are particularly useful in creating web services

and Flash interfaces for your application.

10

Custom CFML

tags

You can create custom tags in Java or C++. These tags can use

features that are only available when using programming

languages. However, CFX tags cannot have tag bodies.

12

16 Introduction: About ColdFusion MX Documentation

ColdFusion

application

structure

ColdFusion supports many ways of building an application, and

includes specific features, such as the Application.cfc file or

Application.cfm page, built-in security features, and shared scopes,

that help you optimize your application structure.

13–17

Error handling

mechanisms

ColdFusion provides several mechanisms for handling data,

including custom error pages and exception-handling tags and

functions, such as

cftry and cfcatch.

14

Shared and

persistent variable

scopes

Using shared and persistent scopes, you can make data available to

a single user over one or many browser sessions, or to multiple

users of an application or server.

15

Code locking You lock sections of code that access in-memory shared scopes or

use external resources that are not safe for multiple simultaneous

access.

15

Application

security

ColdFusion provides mechanisms, including the

cflogin tag, for

authenticating users and authorizing them to access specific

sections of your application. You can also use resource security,

which secures access to ColdFusion resources based on the

ColdFusion page location.

16

Application

globalization

ColdFusion supports global applications that use different

character sets and locales, and provides tags and functions

designed to support globalizing your applications.

17

Debugging tools Using debugging output, the

cftrace tag, logging features, and the

Code Analyzer, you can locate and fix coding errors.

18

Database access

and management

ColdFusion can access SQL databases to retrieve, add, and modify

data. This feature is one of the core functions of many dynamic

applications.

19–21

Queries of Queries You can use a subset of standard SQL within ColdFusion to

manipulate any data that is represented as a record set, including

database query results, LDAP (Lightweight Directory Access

Protocol) directory information, and other data.

22

LDAP directory

access and

management

ColdFusion applications can access and manipulate data in LDAP

directory services. These directories are often used for security

validation data and other directory-like information.

23

Indexing and

searching data

ColdFusion applications can provide full-text search capabilities for

documents and data sources using the Verity search engine.

24–25

Dynamic forms With ColdFusion, you can use HTML and forms to control the data

displayed by a dynamic web page. You can also use the

cfform tag

to enrich your forms with sophisticated graphical controls, and

perform input data validation.

26–30

Validating data ColdFusion provides several ways to validate data in forms and in

CFML variables.

28

Flash forms ColdFusion can display forms using Macromedia Flash, which

presents a pleasing appearance and includes features such as

accordion and tab navigators.

29

Feature Description Chapters

Using this manual 17

XML skinnable

forms

ColdFusion can convert your CFML forms into XML and format the

XML using XSLT skins and style sheets.

30

Data graphing You can use the

cfchart tag to display your data graphically. 31

Reports and

printable output

You can create output that is formatted for print as PDF or

FlashPaper documents. You can also use ColdFusion reporting to

create banded reports for display or printing.

32

Macromedia Flash

integration

You can use native Flash connectivity built into ColdFusion to help

build dynamic Flash user interfaces for ColdFusion applications.

33

Server-side

ActionScript

Macromedia Flash Remoting lets Macromedia Flash MX

developers create server-side ActionScript. ActionScript files can

directly access ColdFusion query and HTTP features through two

functions:

CF.query and CF.http.

34

XML document

processing and

creation

ColdFusion applications can create, use, and manipulate XML

(Extensible Markup Language) documents. ColdFusion also

provides tools to use WDDX (Web Distributed Data Exchange), an

XML dialect for transmitting structured data.

35

Web services ColdFusion applications can use available SOAP (Simple Object

Access Protocol)-based web services, including Microsoft .NET

services. ColdFusion applications can also use ColdFusion

components to provide web services to other applications over the

Internet.

36

Java and J2EE

integration

You can integrate J2EE elements, including JSP (JavaServer

Pages) pages, JSP tag libraries, and Java objects, including EJBs

(Enterprise JavaBeans), into your ColdFusion application.

37

COM and CORBA

objects

The

cfobject tag lets you use COM (Component Object Model) or

DCOM (Distributed Component Object Model) and CORBA

(Common Object Request Broker) objects in your ColdFusion

applications.

38

E-mail messages You can add interactive e-mail features to your ColdFusion

applications using the

cfmail and cfpop tags.

39

HTTP and FTP The

cfhttp and cfftp tags provide simple methods of using HTTP

(Hypertext Transfer Protocol) and FTP (File Transfer Protocol)

communications in your application.

40

File and directory

access

You can use the

cffile, cfdirectory, and cfcontent tags to read,

write, and manage files and directories on the server.

41

Event gateways ColdFusion event gateways let ColdFusion applications

asynchronously react to or generate external events or messages.

42–45

Instant messaging

event gateways

Your ColdFusion application can communicate with XMPP

(Jabber) or IBM Sametime instant messaging clients using the

ColdFusion IM gateways.

43

Feature Description Chapters

18 Introduction: About ColdFusion MX Documentation

Accessing the ColdFusion MX documentation

The ColdFusion MX documentation is designed to provide support for the complete spectrum of

participants.

Documentation set

The ColdFusion MX 7 documentation set includes the following titles:

Viewing online documentation

All ColdFusion MX documentation is available online in HTML and Adobe Acrobat Portable

Document Format (PDF) files. Go to the documentation home page for ColdFusion MX on the

Macromedia website: www.macromedia.com.

SMS event

gateway

Your ColdFusion MX application can communicate with short

message service (SMS) devices, such as mobile phones, using the

ColdFusion SMS event gateway.

44

Creating gateways You can write your own event gateways in Java and integrate them

into ColdFusion MX.

45

Book Description

Installing and Using

ColdFusion MX

Describes system installation and basic configuration for Windows, Solaris,

and Linux. To see this manual, go to www.macromedia.com/go/

livedocs_cfmx7docs_installing.

Configuring and

Administering

ColdFusion MX

Part I describes how to manage the ColdFusion environment, including

connecting to your data sources and configuring security for your

applications. Part II describes Verity search tools and utilities that you can

use for configuring the Verity Search Server engine, as well as creating,

managing, and troubleshooting Verity collections. To see this manual, go to

www.macromedia.com/go/livedocs_cfmx7docs_configadmin.

ColdFusion MX

Developer’s Guide

Describes how to develop your dynamic web applications, including

retrieving and updating your data, using structures, and forms. This manual

includes two volumes. To see this manual, go to www.macromedia.com/go/

livedocs_cfmx7docs_dev.

Getting Started

Building

ColdFusion MX

Applications

Contains an overview of ColdFusion features and application development

procedures. Includes a tutorial that guides you through the process of

developing an example ColdFusion application. To see this manual, go to

www.macromedia.com/go/livedocs_cfmx7docs_gs.

CFML Reference Provides descriptions, syntax, usage, and code examples for all ColdFusion

tags, functions, and variables. This manual includes two volumes. To see

this manual, go to www.macromedia.com/go/

livedocs_cfmx7docs__cfml_reference.

CFML Quick Reference Provides a brief guide that shows the syntax of ColdFusion tags, functions,

and variables.

Feature Description Chapters

19

CHAPTER 1

Introducing ColdFusion MX

This chapter describes Macromedia ColdFusion MX and the role it plays in developing dynamic

Internet applications. This chapter also introduces the topics discussed in this manual.

Contents

About Internet applications and web application servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

About ColdFusion MX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 22

About J2EE and the ColdFusion architecture. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24

About Internet applications and web application servers

With ColdFusion MX, you develop Internet applications that run on web application servers.

The following sections introduce Internet applications and web application servers. Later sections

explain the specific role that ColdFusion MX plays in this environment.

About web pages and Internet applications

The Internet has evolved from a collection of static HTML pages to an application deployment

platform. First, the Internet changed from consisting of static web pages to providing dynamic,

interactive content. Rather than providing unchanging content where organizations merely

advertise goods and services, dynamic pages enable companies to conduct business ranging from

e-commerce to managing internal business processes. For example, a static HTML page lets a

bookstore publish its location, list services such as the ability to place special orders, and advertise

upcoming events like book signings. A dynamic website for the same bookstore lets customers

order books online, write reviews of books they read, and even get suggestions for purchasing

books based on their reading preferences.

More recently, the Internet has become the underlying infrastructure for a wide variety of

applications. With the arrival of technologies such as XML, web services, J2EE (Java 2 Platform,

Enterprise Edition), and Microsoft .NET, the Internet has become a multifaceted tool for

integrating business activities. Now, enterprises can use the Internet to integrate distributed

activities, such as customer service, order entry, order fulfillment, and billing.

20 Chapter 1: Introducing ColdFusion MX

ColdFusion MX is a rapid application development environment that lets you build dynamic

websites and Internet applications quickly and easily. It lets you develop sophisticated websites

and Internet applications without knowing the details of many complex technologies, yet it lets

advanced developers take advantage of the full capabilities of many of the latest Internet

technologies.

About web application servers

To understand ColdFusion, you must first understand the role of web application servers.

Typically, web browsers make requests, and web servers, such as Microsoft Internet Information

Server (IIS) and the Apache web server, fulfill those requests by returning the requested

information to the browser. This information includes, but is not limited to, HTML and

Macromedia Flash files.

A web server’s capabilities are limited because all it does is wait for requests to arrive and attempt

to fulfill those requests as soon as possible. A web server does not let you do the following tasks:

• Interact with a database, other resource, or other application.

• Serve customized information based on user preferences or requests.

• Validate user input.

A web server, basically, locates information and returns it to a web browser.

To extend the capabilities of a web server, you use a web application server, a software program that

extends the web server’s capabilities to do tasks such as those in the preceding list.

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Adobe ColdFusion MX 7.0 User guide

Adobe ColdFusion MX 7.0 User guide

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