1. CF101: Welcome to ColdFusion
Simon Horwith
CIO, AboutWeb LLC
CFUNITED – The premier ColdFusion conference

2. Who Am I? CIO, AboutWeb LLC Adobe Certified Expert
Adobe Certified Master Instructor
Frequent CFUG and Conference Speaker
Editor-in-Chief, CFDJ Magazine
Contributing Author of Several Books
June 28th – July 1st 2006

3. Who Are You? Web site developer
Looking to add more interactivity to your site
Web application developer or development manager who’s heard of ColdFusion
Wondering how it works, how easy it is to use, how scalable it is for enterprise apps
June 28th – July 1st 2006

4. 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 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
June 28th – July 1st 2006

5. Topics Introduction to ColdFusion Code Basics Database Integration
ColdFusion Features
Q&A
June 28th – July 1st 2006

6. 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 Macromedia’s MX product line
June 28th – July 1st 2006

7. 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, .NET, Perl, Ruby, PHP, etc.
June 28th – July 1st 2006

8. 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.
June 28th – July 1st 2006

9. 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
June 28th – July 1st 2006

10. 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
June 28th – July 1st 2006

11. 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>
June 28th – July 1st 2006

12. Code Basics cont’d 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.
June 28th – July 1st 2006

13. Code Basics cont’d <CFOUTPUT>
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 <CFOUTPUT> is ignored, which
June 28th – July 1st 2006

14. Code Basics cont’d <cfset fname = “Simon”>
<cfset lname = “Horwith”>
<cfset fullname = variables.fname & “ “ & variables.lname>
<cfset =
<cfoutput>
Name: <b>#variables.fullname#</b><br>
<a href=“mailto:#variables. #”>#variables. #</a>
</cfoutput>
Would display:
Name: Simon Horwith
June 28th – July 1st 2006

15. Code Basics cont’d
CFML comments are used to comment code and to prevent code from being parsed
Example:
<!--- this is a ColdFusion Comment --->
June 28th – July 1st 2006

16. 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/formatting
Array/structure manipulation
String manipulation
List manpulation
Mathematic operations
Etc.
June 28th – July 1st 2006

17. 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>
June 28th – July 1st 2006

18. Database Integration
CF can communicate with virtually any database, including:
Microsoft SQL Server
Sybase
Oracle
DB/2
Informix
and many more enterprise DBMS’s, as well as desktop DBMS’s such as MS Access
June 28th – July 1st 2006

19. 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.
June 28th – July 1st 2006

20. 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, lastname
FROM employees
ORDER BY lastname
</CFQUERY>
June 28th – July 1st 2006

21. 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>
June 28th – July 1st 2006

22. 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>
June 28th – July 1st 2006

23. Database Integration cont’d
This code loops over each row from the recordset and displays it <CFQUERY name=“qEmployees” datasource=“myDSN”> SELECT firstname, lastname FROM employees ORDER BY lastname </CFQUERY> <cfoutput query=“qEmployees”> #qEmployees.firstname# #qEmployees.lastname# <br> </cfoutput>
June 28th – July 1st 2006

24. 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
June 28th – July 1st 2006

25. 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 layerr of abstraction between business logic and presentation
June 28th – July 1st 2006

26. 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
PDF and FlashPaper Generation
Flash Forms and XML Forms
Event Gateways
Many online and printed resources
SO MUCH MORE!
June 28th – July 1st 2006

27. Good Luck!
… enjoy ColdFusion!
Q & A time
June 28th – July 1st 2006