ColdFusion Cheat Sheet

This is a quick and dirty cheatsheet for Adobe ColdFusion 10+, many snippets can be used on the older version.

Set Variables

Use cfset to create a variable (if it doesn’t exist) and assign it a value. You can also use it to call functions.

Current time

Regular string

Integer

Concatenate variable and string

Array

Data structure

Print out

Hard coded string


This is a message for you

Variable

 _same as inspect in ruby_
#name# _same as puts in ruby_

Arrays

Arrays don’t start from 0 like in every other language instead they start from 1

Create array literal

Constructor

Adding elements in an specific index

Appending

Looping over the array


    #thing#

Loops

There are several different types of for and while loops in ColdFusion.
For more info please see the docs for cfloop.

FOR loop

for (i=1;i LTE ArrayLen(array);i=i+1) {
	WriteOutput(array[i]);
}

While Loop

x = 0;
while (x LT 5) {
	x = x + 1;
	WriteOutput(x);
}
//OUTPUTS 12345

Do While Loop

x = 0;
do {
 x = x+1;
 WriteOutput(x);
} while (x LTE 0);
// OUTPUTS 1

FOR IN Loop (Structure)

struct = StructNew();
struct.one = "1";
struct.two = "2";
for (key in struct) {
	WriteOutput(key);
}
//OUTPUTS onetwo

FOR IN Loop (Array)

cars = ["Ford","Dodge"];
for (car in cars) {
	WriteOutput(car);
}
//OUTPUTS FordDodge

FOR IN Loop (Query)

cars = QueryNew("make,model",
	"cf_sql_varchar,cf_sql_varchar",
	[["Ford", "T"],["Dodge","30"]]);
for (car in cars) {
	WriteOutput("Model " & car.model);
}
//OUTPUTS Model TModel 30

Structures

This are like dictionaries in Python or hashes in Ruby

Create structure literal

Constructor

Adding elements with brackets

Adding elements with dot notation

Looping over the structure


    #aGuy[data]#: #data#

Queries

Use SQL in coldfusion to retrieve data from a database or enter data in it

Query

var queryOptions = { datasource: "appMain" };
var data = queryExecute(
  "SELECT * FROM users", {}, queryOptions
);

Allocate query result into variable & retrieve info


    SELECT * FROM TestTable

Looping over the Query


    
        myDataAlfa: #firstQ.myDataAlfa# myDataInt: #firstQ.myDataInt#
    
    
    #firstQ.columnlist#
    #firstQ.recordcount#

Logging

Logging stuff

Clear Log

var logDir = expandPath( "/logs/" );
var logs = directoryList(
  path = logDir,
  listInfo = "name",
  filter = "*.log",
  type = "file",
  recurse = "false"
);
for( var log in logs ){
  var fullPath = logDir & log ;
  if( fileExists( fullPath ) ){
    fileDelete( fullPath );
  }
}

LogBox

component {
  // ...
  function onError( exception ){
   // uLogging error with logbox...
    writeOutput( "Writing the error in log file.." );
    logger.error(
        "An error occured: #exception.message# #exception.detail#"
        exception
    );
    // error page
    include "views/error.cfm";
  }
}

Security

Security-related settings for Application.cfc file

Lock down APP

// Application.cfc
component {
  this.name = "myApp";
  this.blockedExtForFileUpload = "*";
  this.scriptProtect					 = "all";
  this.sessioncookie = {
    httpOnly: true,
    secure  : true
  };
}

Error Handling

ColdFusion provides a variety of tools to customize error information and handle errors when they occur.

Try / Catch / Throw / Finally / Rethrow

try {
	throw(message="Oops", detail="xyz");
} catch (any e) {
	WriteOutput("Error: " & e.message);
	rethrow;
} finally {
	WriteOutput("I run even if no error");
}

OnError Exception

public function onError(required exception, required string eventName)
  {
    var factory = new App.ExceptionFactory();
    var e = factory.getNewException(arguments.eventName, arguments.exception);
    if (e.logError()) {
      var loggingFile = new App.SomeLoggingCfc(arguments.eventName, arguments.exception);
      loggingFile.commitLog();
    }
    if (e.debugError()) {}
    e.throwException();
  }

Output CF Error details without CFDump

...

Debugging

You can use CFML tags and functions to display or hide debugging and tracing information.

Control Debugging Output

Show Query execution time


SELECT * FROM TestTable

Log Values to MyAppSilentTrace.log

Comments

ColdFusion comments have a similar format to HTML comments but use three dash characters instead of two.

Single line comment

mojo = 1; //THIS IS A COMMENT

Multiline comment

/* This is a comment
	that can span
	multiple lines
*/

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