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Coldfusion Development: With ColdFusion
MX, you develop Internet applications that run on web
application servers. ColdFusion provides a comprehensive
set of features for developing and managing Internet applications.
These features enhance speed and ease-of-development,
and let you dynamically deploy your applications, integrate
new and legacy technologies, and build secure applications.
About web pages and Internet applications -
The Internet has evolved from a collection of static HTML
pages to an application deployment platform. First, the
Internet changed from consisting of static web pages to
providing dynamic, interactive content. Rather than providing
unchanging content where organizations merely advertise
goods and services, dynamic pages enable companies to
conduct business ranging from e-commerce to managing internal
business processes. For example, a static HTML page lets
a bookstore publish its location, list services such as
the ability to place special orders, and advertise upcoming
events like book signings. A dynamic website for the same
bookstore lets customers order books online, write reviews
of books they read, and even get suggestions for purchasing
books based on their reading preferences.
More recently, the Internet has become the underlying
infrastructure for a wide variety of applications. With
the arrival of technologies such as XML, web services,
J2EE (Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition), and Microsoft
.NET, the Internet has become a multifaceted tool for
integrating business activities. Now, enterprises can
use the Internet to integrate distributed activities,
such as customer service, order entry, order fulfillment,
and billing.
ColdFusion MX is a rapid application development environment
that lets you build dynamic websites and Internet applications
quickly and easily. It lets you develop sophisticated
websites and Internet applications without knowing the
details of many complex technologies, yet it lets advanced
developers take advantage of the full capabilities of
many of the latest Internet technologies.
About web application servers - To understand
ColdFusion, you must first understand the role of web
application servers. Typically, web browsers make requests,
and web servers, such as Microsoft Internet Information
Server (IIS) and the Apache web server, fulfill those
requests by returning the requested information to the
browser. This information includes, but is not limited
to, HTML and Macromedia Flash files.
A web server's capabilities are limited because all it
does is wait for requests to arrive and attempt to fulfill
those requests as soon as possible. A web server does
not let you do the following tasks:
- Interact with a database, other resource, or other application.
- Serve customized information based on user preferences or requests.
- Validate user input.
To extend the capabilities of a web server, you use a web application server, a software program that extends the web server's capabilities to do tasks such as those in the preceding list.
How a web server and web application server work together
The following steps explain how a web server and web application server work together to process a page request:
- The user requests a page by typing a URL in a browser, and the web server receives the request.
- The web server looks at the file extension to determine whether a web application server must process the page. Then, one of the following actions occur:
- If the user requests a file that is a simple web page (often one with an HTM or HTML extension), the web server fulfills the request and sends the file to the browser.
- If the user requests a file that is a page that a web application server must process (one with a CFM, CFML, or CFC extension for ColdFusion requests), the web server passes the request to the web application server. The web application server processes the page and sends the results to the web server, which returns those results to the browser. The following figure shows this process:
- Query other database applications for data.
- Dynamically populate form elements.
- Dynamically generate Flash application data.
- Provide application security.
- Integrate with other systems using standard protocols such as HTTP, FTP, LDAP, POP, and SMTP.
- Create shopping carts and e-commerce websites.
- Respond with an e-mail message immediately after a user submits a form.
- Return the results of keyword searches.
ColdFusion MX is a rapid scripting environment server for creating Rich Internet Applications. ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) is an easy-to-learn tag-based scripting language, with connectivity to enterprise data and powerful built-in search and charting capabilities. ColdFusion MX enables developers to easily build and deploy dynamic websites, content publishing systems, self-service applications, commerce sites, and more.
ColdFusion MX consists of the following core components:
- ColdFusion scripting environment
- CFML
- ColdFusion application services
- ColdFusion MX Administrator
The ColdFusion scripting environment - The ColdFusion scripting environment provides an efficient development model for Internet applications. At the heart of the ColdFusion scripting environment is the ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML), a tag-based programming language that encapsulates many of the low-level details of web programming in high-level tags and functions.
ColdFusion Markup Language - ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) is a tag-based language, similar to HTML, that uses special tags and functions. With CFML, you can enhance standard HTML files with database commands, conditional operators, high-level formatting functions, and other elements to rapidly produce easy-to-maintain web applications. However, CFML is not limited to enhancing HTML. For example, you can create Macromedia Flash MX applications that consist entirely of Flash elements and CFML. Similarly, you can use CFML to create web services for use by other applications.
CFML tags - CFML looks similar to HTML-it includes starting and, in most cases, ending tags, and each tag is enclosed in angle brackets. All ending tags are preceded with a forward slash (/) and all tag names are preceded with cf; for example:
<cftagname>
tag body text and CFML
</cftagname>
CFML increases productivity by providing a layer of abstraction that hides many low-level details involved with Internet application programming. At the same time, CFML is extremely powerful and flexible. ColdFusion lets you easily build applications that integrate files, databases, legacy systems, mail servers, FTP servers, objects, and components.
CFML includes approximately one hundred tags. ColdFusion tags serve many functions. They provide programming constructs, such as conditional processing and loop structures. They also provide services, such as charting and graphing, full-text search, access to protocols such as FTP, SMTP/POP, and HTTP, and much more. The following table lists a few examples of commonly used ColdFusion tags:
CFML extensions - You can extend CFML further by creating custom tags or user-defined functions (UDFs), or by integrating COM, C++, and Java components (such as JSP tag libraries). You can also create ColdFusion components (CFCs), which encapsulate related functions and properties and provide a consistent interface for accessing them.
All these features let you easily create reusable functionality that is customized to the types of applications or websites that you are building.
CFML development tools - Macromedia Dreamweaver MX helps you develop ColdFusion applications efficiently. It includes many features that simplify and enhance ColdFusion development, including tools for debugging CFML. Because CFML is written in an HTML-like text format, and you often use HTML in ColdFusion pages, you can also use an HTML editor or a text editor, such as Notepad, to write ColdFusion applications.
Server-side ActionScript - Another feature of the ColdFusion scripting environment is server-side ActionScript. ActionScript is the JavaScript-based language used to write application logic in Macromedia Flash MX. By bringing this language to the server, ColdFusion MX enables Flash developers to use their familiar scripting environment to connect to ColdFusion resources and deliver the results to client-side applications using the integrated Macromedia Flash Remoting service. Using server-side ActionScript, Flash programmers can create ColdFusion services, such as SQL queries, for use by Flash clients.
ColdFusion application services - ColdFusion application services are a set of built-in services that extend the capabilities of the ColdFusion scripting environment. These services include the following:
- Charting and graphing service Generates visual data representations, including line, bar, and pie charts.
- Full-text search service Searches documents and databases using the Verity search engine.
- Flash Remoting service Provides a high-performance protocol for exchanging data with Flash MX clients.
You can manage the following options with ColdFusion MX Administrator:
- ColdFusion data sources
- Debugging and logging output
- Server settings
- Application security
- ColdFusion MX native Flash connectivity Lets Flash MX clients interact with ColdFusion MX in an efficient, secure, and reliable way. Flash MX includes ActionScript commands that connect to ColdFusion components (CFCs) and ColdFusion pages. Flash clients communicate with ColdFusion applications using Action Message Format protocol over HTTP, which provides fast, lightweight, binary data transfer between the Flash client and ColdFusion.
- Flash MX development application debugger Lets you trace your application logic as it executes between Flash and ColdFusion.
- ColdFusion MX server-side ActionScript Lets Flash programmers familiar with ActionScript create ColdFusion services, such as SQL queries, for use by Flash clients.
About J2EE and the ColdFusion architecture - As the Internet software market has matured, the infrastructure services required by distributed Internet applications, including ColdFusion applications, have become increasingly standardized. The most widely adopted standard today is the Java 2 Platform, Enterprise Edition (J2EE) specification. J2EE provides a common set of infrastructure services for accessing databases, protocols, and operating system functionality, across multiple operating systems.
About ColdFusion MX and the J2EE platform - ColdFusion MX is implemented on the Java technology platform and uses a J2EE application server for many of its base services, including database connectivity, naming and directory services, and other runtime services. ColdFusion MX can be configured to use an embedded J2EE server or it can be deployed as a J2EE application on an independent J2EE application server. ColdFusion MX Enterprise includes a fully featured version of the Macromedia JRun J2EE application server, or can be deployed on third-party J2EE servers such as IBM WebSphere and BEA WebLogic.
By implementing the ColdFusion scripting environment on top of the J2EE platform, ColdFusion MX takes advantage of the power of the J2EE platform while also providing an easy-to-use scripting environment and built-in services. Moreover, because ColdFusion is built on a J2EE platform, you can easily integrate J2EE and Java functionality into your ColdFusion application. As a result, ColdFusion pages can do any of the following:
- Share session data with JSPs (Java Server Pages) and Java servlets.
- Import custom JSP tag libraries and use them like ColdFusion custom tags.
- Integrate with Java objects, including the J2EE Java API, JavaBeans, and Enterprise JavaBeans.
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Features of Coldfusion
