cf101: welcome to coldfusion simon horwith cto, etrilogy ltd

CF101: Welcome to ColdFusion

Simon Horwith

CTO, Etrilogy Ltd.

Who Am I?

• Macromedia Certified:InstructorAdvanced ColdFusion DeveloperFlash 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

Who Are You?

• Web site developerLooking to add more interactivity to your

site

• Web application developer or development manager who’s heard of ColdFusionWondering how it works, how easy it is to

use, how scalable it is for enterprise apps

What We’ll Cover

• We’ll show:How easy it is to use and how it works How CF can be used to add interactivity to

your siteThe basics of CF programming: no

previous CF experience requiredHow the features of CF make it an ideal

platform solution for meeting complex business requirements

Topics

• Introduction to ColdFusion

• Code Basics

• Database Integration

• ColdFusion Features

• Q&A

Introduction to ColdFusion

• ColdFusion is:A leading Server-Side Web Application

Development SystemThe leading rapid development platform

for the webVery easy to learn and to useOS platform independentA key part of Macromedia’s MX product

line

Introduction to ColdFusion cont’d• 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.

Introduction to ColdFusion cont’d• 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.

Introduction to ColdFusion cont’d• 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

Code Basics

• ColdFusion pages are written in CFML – ColdFusion Mark-up Language

• CFML is:Like HTML- it is a tag based languageUsed 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

Code Basics cont’d

• CFML tags begin with the letters “CF”

• Two very common tags:<CFSET> creates a variable<CFOUTPUT> displays a variable

• Example:<CFSET firstName = “Simon”>

<CFOUTPUT> #Variables.firstname#</CFOUTPUT>

Code Basics cont’d

• Variables in CF:Are case-insensitiveAre typelessExist for the duration of a request and are then

destroyedHave 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.

Code Basics cont’d

• <CFOUTPUT>Has both an opening and closing tagTells 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 <CFOUTPUT> is ignored, which

Code Basics cont’d<cfset fname = “Simon”><cfset lname = “Horwith”><cfset fullname = variables.fname & “ “ & variables.lname><cfset email = simon@horwith.com><cfoutput>Name: <b>#variables.fullname#</b><br>Email: <a href=“mailto:#variables.email#”>#variables.email#</a></cfoutput>

Would display:

Name: Simon HorwithEmail: simon@horwith.com

Code Basics cont’d

• CFML comments are used to comment code and to prevent code from being parsed

• Example:

<!--- this is a ColdFusion Comment --->

Code Basics cont’d

• 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/formattingArray/structure manipulationString manipulationList manpulationMathematic operationsEtc.

Code Basics cont’d

• Example of how to use functions to retrieve today’s date (now() function) and display it in “mm/dd/yy” format (dateformat() function)

<cfoutput>

<!--- display today’s date in mm/dd/yy format --->

#dateformat(now(),”mm/dd/yy”)#

</cfoutput>

Database Integration

• CF can communicate with virtually any database, including:Microsoft SQL ServerSybaseOracleDB/2Informixand many more enterprise DBMS’s, as well as

desktop DBMS’s such as MS Access

Database Integration cont’d• 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.

Database Integration cont’d• ColdFusion passes SQL to a datasource using the

<CFQUERY> tag• <CFQUERY> 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:<CFQUERY name=“qEmployees” datasource=“myDSN”>

SELECT firstname, lastnameFROM employeesORDER BY lastname

</CFQUERY>

Database Integration cont’d

This code produces an ERROR!!

<CFQUERY name=“qEmployees” datasource=“myDSN”>

SELECT firstname, lastname

FROM employees

ORDER BY lastname

</CFQUERY>

<cfoutput>

#firstname# #lastname#

</cfoutput>

Database Integration cont’d

This code displays only the first row from the recordset

<CFQUERY name=“qEmployees” datasource=“myDSN”>

SELECT firstname, lastname

FROM employees

ORDER BY lastname

</CFQUERY>

<cfoutput>

#qEmployees.firstname# #qEmployees.lastname#

</cfoutput>

Database Integration cont’d

This code loops over each row from the recordset and displays it<CFQUERY name=“qEmployees” datasource=“myDSN”>

SELECT firstname, lastnameFROM employeesORDER BY lastname</CFQUERY><cfoutput query=“qEmployees”>#qEmployees.firstname# #qEmployees.lastname# <br></cfoutput>

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

CF Features cont’d• 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 layer of abstraction between business logic and presentation

CF Features cont’d

• 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!

Good Luck!

• And enjoy ColdFusion!

• Q & A time