Getting started with ColdFusion
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What is ColdFusion?
Looking for an online database management system for dynamic web pages? ColdFusion is a programming language based on tags and ECMA scripting language (core JavaScript based programming language). In general ColdFusion is known as CFML, which stands for ColdFusion Markup Language. This programming language is used in web application development to create dynamic web pages. Building dynamic webpage and accessing database from web server – you can manage everything with ColdFusion.
ColdFusion environment
Learning CFML is as simple as learning HTML and other markup languages. Compared to other application, ColdFusion Markup Language is efficient enough to handle all the complexities of web application. In a dynamic web page, transmission of data from database, email, directories, File System to ColdFusion page as well as web page are done through ColdFusion Application Server. The basic elements of ColdFusion are tags and functions. CFML tags are quite similar to HTML and XML tags and provides the facility to access database. Function, another element of CFML supports other useful operations like – retrieving data from the database and other system information.
How ColdFusion works
ColdFusion application pages are hosted in the ColdFusion Server. This server executes the requests, which are made through web browser. Client stays at the application side and any request for ColdFusion application page are done by typing the URL of the page in the web browser. ColdFusion Server, which links the database with ColdFusion application page, will process that request. The server retrieves necessary information from the database and routes that information back to the browser.
Client can place the request from the browser on the ColdFusion application page. Requests are carried from client’s end to server end, by ColdFusion files that contains ColdFusion tags. ColdFusion server then scans all CFML tags and processes the request made by the client. File extensions of HTML pages can be either ‘.html’ or ‘.htm’, but for ColdFusion application pages, the extensions are ‘.cfm’ and ‘.cfml’. Therefore, you can easily distinguish a ColdFusion application page from a HTML page. After retrieving information from the database, ColdFusion server returns back that information to the Web Server by using HTML and other technologies, which are used in the client side. Finally, the Web Server returns back that HTML page to the web browser.
Advantages of ColdFusion
Though it is said that ColdFusion is suitable for dynamic websites but developers can use this programming language in:
- Productivity layer above J2EE or .NET platform
- Service oriented architecture to generate web services as a middleware
For a dynamic website it is important to maintain balance between three common characteristics – receiving argument statements, appropriate body tags and processing the request by ColdFusion programs. ColdFusion Markup Language comes with all the features to manage the balance between these three characteristics. Moreover, you can use CFML custom tags for a recursive function.
ColdFusion provides wide array of value added services:
- Converts web content from HTML format to PDF or Flashpaper format
- Provides form validation in the client side that includes Flash based rich forms
- Offers GUI widgets like - date pickers and data grids
- Supports ODBC or JDBC to ensures platform independent database query
- Retrieves data from common enterprise systems like – HTTP, FTP, POP, LDAP and Microsoft Active Directory
- Ensures cache management in both client side and server side
- Supports client, session and application management
- Provides indexing files and search functions
- Ensures features like – GUI administration, scheduling the tasks and clustering the Server
Features of ColdFusion
Following is the example of simple HTML tag:
CFML tags and functions are written inside HTML tags to
The following are some remarkable features of ColdFusion:
Printable web content
Want to transform HTML content into printable content? With ColdFusion MX you can easily transform any HTML pages into Adobe PDF or Macromedia FlashPaper2 format. Compared to HTML format, the quality of print are better in Adobe PDF and FlashPaper2 format. Apart from printing the contents with headers and footers, you will get other facilities like – saving the output (print) in local disk or email and managing the content in multiple page sizes.
Integrated Business Reporting
So far we are familiar with third party reporting products. ColdFusion’s integrated business reporting technique has made the task easy for us. Now you can easily create structured reports and format business related information. These reports are generated through ColdFusion Report Builder tool that is available with ColdFusion MX. Since ColdFusion Report Builder creates business reports in Adobe PDF or Flash Paper2 format, therefore, other users can easily view these reports on the web.
Rich Flash Forms
Creating forms with HTML tags is a complex process and time consuming also. With CFML tags creating forms has become easy for the developers and it takes lesser time to develop a form in HTML. In HTML you can create text fields, text box, radio buttons and dropdown lists but HTML has its own limitations. Major drawbacks of HTML are unavailability of Flash controls like – data grids, tree controls, calendar and date pickers. With ColdFusion you can efficiently use these control tools to give a smart look in the forms. Even you can separate the form in multiple pages with tabs.
All forms in ColdFusion MX are generated based on XML and CSS styles. Following is an example of CFML code:
Built-In Charting and Graphing
Other than reports and forms, ColdFusion can develop wide array of charts and graphs and most of them carry professional looks. ColdFusion is highly customizable. You can not only create charts in predefined styles but also in your own style. You will get more then 200 attributes to modify predefined charts and graphs.
Search
The updated version of ColdFusion MX provides the facility to search a complete text from the content. Apart from this, ‘searching’ feature carries other remarkable characteristics like – search the text according to predefined hierarchy, spell check, suggestions to correct wrong spellings and highlighted search results.
SMS and instant messaging
SMS (Short Message Services) application gateway is available in ColdFusion to provide following facilities:
- Transferring account, bill payment and other alerts through SMS banking
- Voting through SMS
- Providing other remote operations
ColdFusion SMS application comes with ColdFusion Server, Carrier Short Message Service Center and end user devices like – mobile phone, PDA or pager.
With the help of wireless network, a query SMS from the client is carried to Carrier Short Message Service Center (Carrier SMS center) and from there it goes to ColdFusion Server to process the CFML tags. After processing the query, the information will return back to the client through the same route.
The latest version of ColdFusion, ColdFusion MX7 comes with two in-build Instant Messaging gateways - Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) gateway and Lotus Sametime gateway. These gateways provide faster and secure process to connect with a service representative. This technology can be used in a CRM environment, where the representative of a company needs to interact with multiple customers at a time. You can create Instant Messaging applications to route the customers or clients to the particular representatives of the company.
Caching in ColdFusion
You can use ColdFusion structure to store data in CF Servers, CF Applications and CF Request. This feature minimizes the workload of processing each query in the database server and total number of network calls (ColdFusion queries). All frequently used queries are cached in the RAM with the help of parameters – ‘CACHEDWITHIN’ and ‘CACHEDAFTER’ in ColdFusion tags. With ColdFusion structure, caching has become efficient, economic and makes ColdFusion application free from ‘points of failure’.
System requirements to install ColdFusion
ColdFusion is compatible with Windows, Linux and Unix.
ColdFusion in Windows
500MB hard disk space, 512MB RAM and Intel Pentium II or AMD Athlon with 32bitx86 processors are the primary requirement to run ColdFusion in Windows operating systems. ColdFusion is also compatible with operating systems like – MS windows 2003 Web Edition, Enterprise Edition and Standard Edition. It is observed that MS Windows 2000 and XP can be used for development purposes. Apart from these, other system requirements are – MS Windows 2000 Advanced Server, Datacenter Server and Server with SP3 or higher.
ColdFusion in Linux
500MB hard disk space, 512MB RAM and Intel Pentium II or AMD Athlon with 32bitx86 processors are the primary requirement to run ColdFusion in Linux operating systems. Compatible operating systems are – Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS and ES versions 3.0 and 4.0. Apart from these, other system requirements are – SuSE Linux Enterprise Server version 8 and 9. For application in Japanese it is recommended to use Turbo Linux 8 Server.
ColdFusion in Unix
500MB hard disk space, 512MB RAM and SPARC or POWER/3 processors are the primary requirements to run ColdFusion in Linux operating systems. Compatible operating systems are – Sun Solaris versions 8, 9 or 10. Moreover, IBM AIX 5L, 5.1, 5.3 are the operating systems, which are required to run ColdFusion in WebSphere application servers. Apart from these, other system requirements are – Mac OS X 10.3.9, 10.4.2 and 10.4.3.
For ColdFusion Report Builder, primary system requirements are – 60MB hard disk space, 128MB – 256MB RAM and 600 MHz Intel Pentium III processor. The operating systems are – Windows XP, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003.
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