CF101: Welcome to ColdFusion

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CF101 Welcome to ColdFusion

• Simon Horwith
• CTO, Etrilogy Ltd.

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Who Am I?

• Macromedia Certified
• Instructor
• Advanced ColdFusion Developer
• Flash Developer
• Member Team Macromedia
• CTO, Etrilogy Ltd. (London)
• Private Consultant Web/DB App Dev
• Frequent CFUG and Conference Speaker
• Monthly Contributor to CFDJ Magazine
• Contributing Author of Several Books

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Who Are You?

• Web site developer
• Looking to add more interactivity to your site
• Web application developer or development manager
  whos heard of ColdFusion
• Wondering how it works, how easy it is to use,
  how scalable it is for enterprise apps

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What Well Cover

• Well show
• How easy it is to use and how it works
• How CF can be used to add interactivity to your
  site
• The basics of CF programming no previous CF
  experience required
• How the features of CF make it an ideal platform
  solution for meeting complex business requirements

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Topics

• Introduction to ColdFusion
• Code Basics
• Database Integration
• ColdFusion Features
• QA

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Introduction to ColdFusion

• ColdFusion is
• A leading Server-Side Web Application Development
  System
• The leading rapid development platform for the
  web
• Very easy to learn and to use
• OS platform independent
• A key part of Macromedias MX product line

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Introduction to ColdFusion contd

• On the web there are 2 classes of web
  technologies server-side and client-side
• Client-side technologies run in a users browser
  Flash, JavaScript, Java Applets, etc.
• Server-side runs on a central server
  ColdFusion, ASP, ASP.NET, Perl, PHP, etc.

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Introduction to ColdFusion contd

• Static Web Architecture user sends an HTTP
  request to a web server which then returns HTML
  (along with any client-side technology code) back
  to the browser for parsing
• Dynamic Web Architecture user sends an HTTP
  request for a dynamic page to a web server. The
  web server routes the request to the Application
  Server which parses the server-side technology
  instructions and sends the resulting text back to
  the browser for parsing.

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Introduction to ColdFusion contd

• ColdFusion files have a .cfm extension
• The web server hands any request for a .cfm page
  to the ColdFusion server for processing
• The ColdFusion server looks through the contents
  of the page for instructions and ignores all
  other text (text, HTML, and other client-side
  technologies may be used in CF pages as the CF
  Server ignores them and they are sent back to the
  browser along with the dynamic page output)
• ColdFusion Instructions are written in CFML

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Code Basics

• ColdFusion pages are written in CFML ColdFusion
  Mark-up Language
• CFML is
• Like HTML- it is a tag based language
• Used to tell the ColdFusion server to connect
  with a database, create a variable, etc.
• Processed in place. HTML and CFML are often
  interwoven in order to mark-up the output
  generated by CF tags

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Code Basics contd

• CFML tags begin with the letters CF
• Two very common tags
• ltCFSETgt creates a variable
• ltCFOUTPUTgt displays a variable
• Example
• ltCFSET firstName Simongt
• ltCFOUTPUTgt Variables.firstnamelt/CFOUTPUTgt

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Code Basics contd

• Variables in CF
• Are case-insensitive
• Are typeless
• Exist for the duration of a request and are then
  destroyed
• Have a prefix. A variable prefix tells
  ColdFusion where this variable exists in memory.
  ColdFusion will search for a variable in many
  memory scopes if no prefix is specified. This
  impacts on performance and readability.

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Code Basics contd

• ltCFOUTPUTgt
• Has both an opening and closing tag
• Tells ColdFusion to examine the text between the
  opening and closing tag and to evaluate any
  variable or expression surrounded with hash marks
  ()
• Any non-CFML text inside ltCFOUTPUTgt is ignored,
  which

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Code Basics contd

• ltcfset fname Simongt
• ltcfset lname Horwithgt
• ltcfset fullname variables.fname
  variables.lnamegt
• ltcfset email simon_at_horwith.comgt
• ltcfoutputgt
• Name ltbgtvariables.fullnamelt/bgtltbrgt
• Email lta hrefmailtovariables.emailgtvariabl
  es.emaillt/agt
• lt/cfoutputgt
• Would display
• Name Simon Horwith
• Email simon_at_horwith.com

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Code Basics contd

• CFML comments are used to comment code and to
  prevent code from being parsed
• Example
• lt!--- this is a ColdFusion Comment ---gt

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Code Basics contd

• CFML not only has tags, but functions as well.
  There are over 70 tags and over 200 functions in
  the CFML language.
• A few types of functions
• Date manipulation/formatting
• Array/structure manipulation
• String manipulation
• List manpulation
• Mathematic operations
• Etc.

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Code Basics contd

• Example of how to use functions to retrieve
  todays date (now() function) and display it in
  mm/dd/yy format (dateformat() function)
• ltcfoutputgt
• lt!--- display todays date in mm/dd/yy format
  ---gt
• dateformat(now(),mm/dd/yy)
• lt/cfoutputgt

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Database Integration

• CF can communicate with virtually any database,
  including
• Microsoft SQL Server
• Sybase
• Oracle
• DB/2
• Informix
• and many more enterprise DBMSs, as well as
  desktop DBMSs such as MS Access

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Database Integration contd

• ColdFusion MX uses Java Database Connectivity
  (JDBC) drivers to connect with databases
• JDBC drivers translate SQL (Structured Query
  Language) commands to native binary code that a
  database understands, pass that binary code to a
  datasource for execution, and return any returned
  resultset to the ColdFusion page that invoked it.
• A datasource is a named connection (alias) for
  a database it stores the database name,
  location, server name, login and password, etc.

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Database Integration contd

• ColdFusion passes SQL to a datasource using the
  ltCFQUERYgt tag
• ltCFQUERYgt should always have
• Name (assigns a name to the resultset and makes
  code more readable)
• Datasource (the DataSource name that points at
  the database to pass the SQL to)
• Example
• ltCFQUERY nameqEmployees datasourcemyDSNgt
• SELECT firstname, lastname
• FROM employees
• ORDER BY lastname
• lt/CFQUERYgt

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Database Integration contd

• This code produces an ERROR!!
• ltCFQUERY nameqEmployees datasourcemyDSNgt
• SELECT firstname, lastname
• FROM employees
• ORDER BY lastname
• lt/CFQUERYgt
• ltcfoutputgt
• firstname lastname
• lt/cfoutputgt

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Database Integration contd

• This code displays only the first row from the
  recordset
• ltCFQUERY nameqEmployees datasourcemyDSNgt
• SELECT firstname, lastname
• FROM employees
• ORDER BY lastname
• lt/CFQUERYgt
• ltcfoutputgt
• qEmployees.firstname qEmployees.lastname
• lt/cfoutputgt

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Database Integration contd

• This code loops over each row from the recordset
  and displays itltCFQUERY nameqEmployees
  datasourcemyDSNgtSELECT firstname,
  lastnameFROM employeesORDER BY
  lastnamelt/CFQUERYgtltcfoutput queryqEmployeesgt
  qEmployees.firstname qEmployees.lastname
  ltbrgtlt/cfoutputgt

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CF Features Yes it can do all this and SO much
more!

• Tags and functions for creating, reading,
  renaming, moving, renaming, and deleting files
  and folders from the local file system
• Easy access to LDAP (lightweight directory access
  protocol) resources
• COM, DCOM, and CORBA support
• Easy integration with existing Java Applications
• HTTP functionality
• Out of the box ease of establishing connections
  with MANY RDBMS platforms
• Built-in security framework

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CF Features contd

• Advanced record-set functionality
• Robust graphing and reporting functionality
• Application architecture that supports persistent
  memory scopes
• Over 70 tags and 200 functions built-in to the
  easy to use and learn CFML programming language
• Custom Tags and User-Defined Functions
• An object-oriented framework (ColdFusion
  Components) that offers OOP features and a layerr
  of abstraction between business logic and
  presentation

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CF Features contd

• Web services support for consumption and
  publication, ,including support for Java, .NET,
  and Flash Remoting Applications
• XML support
• Web based Administrative interface
• Platform independent runs as a standalone
  server or J2EE application on many platforms.
• Many online and printed resources
• SO MUCH MORE!

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Good Luck!

• And enjoy ColdFusion!
• Q A time