Raymond Camden's ColdFusion Blog: Application.CFC Template Update

Application.CFC Template Update

Someone asked me today when I was going to update my Application.cfc reference (linked to in the Guides pod to the left) for ColdFusion 8. I went ahead and did so. You can see the new guide here:

http://www.coldfusionjedi.com/downloads/application.cfc.txt

You will notice I changed to a text file for this one. I always found it bothersome that when I copied from the PDF, I lost my tabs. Since I'm a bit anal retentive about tabbing, I figured a simple txt file would be better. Shoot, this whole PDF thing is probably just a fad anyway.

I also included comments in this template. I didn't do it before because - well - I wanted folks to have something they could just cut and paste into a new file (or into a CFEclipse Snippet). But I figured one line comments can't hurt. If folks think it is a mistake, let me know. Again the intent here is to serve as a template, not really a learning guide. You will notice that in the official docs, they forgot some of the items you can include. For example, the reference guide forgot customtagpaths and mappings. The dev guide has them - but forgot the other new This scope items like secureJSON. (I've logged bugs for both of these issues.)

Lastly - I've kept the CF7 version linked as well.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 5, 2007 at 2:12 PM. It was filed in the following categories: ColdFusion. It has been viewed 3,743 times and has 19 comments.

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Comment 1 written by Andy Matthews on 5 November 2007, at 4:56 PM

And of course one DAY after I rewrite my custom CMS to use app.cfc.

:)

Thanks Ray...the tutes and assistance you give are always top notch. Appreciated.
Comment 2 written by Raymond Camden on 5 November 2007, at 5:00 PM

I had to read "tutes" a few times to figure out you meant tutorials. ;)
Comment 3 written by Jeff Fleitz on 6 November 2007, at 6:45 AM

Good timing for me Ray. I just updated to CF8 2 weeks ago and began the process of migrating my code to use App.cfc. I was actually on your site looking at the one for CF7 last night.

Thanks!
Comment 4 written by Daniel Greenfeld on 6 November 2007, at 9:17 AM

Thanks for taking your documentation out of PDF. Text or ReStructuredText is the way to go. Easier for you to handle and it also means that we don't have to use a PDF reader/
Comment 5 written by brian on 6 November 2007, at 5:58 PM

Do you think the delete onRequest stuff in onRequestStart for cfc calls should be in as standard? It can be a difficult one to pin down, especially when it causes problems with binding.
Comment 6 written by Raymond Camden on 6 November 2007, at 7:55 PM

What delete?
Comment 7 written by brian on 7 November 2007, at 2:43 AM

<cfif listlast(cgi.path_info,".") is "cfc">
<cfset StructDelete( THIS, "OnRequest" ) />
<cfset StructDelete(variables,"onRequest")/>
</cfif>

otherwise my cfselect binding to a cfc in the same directory doesn't work.
Comment 8 written by Raymond Camden on 7 November 2007, at 8:30 AM

Ah. Hmm, good point. Thing is - I really want this to be a "no code" template, ie, no assumptions. I _did_ do some code inside onError.

Hmmmm. What do people think? What if I add an additional comment with very obvious warnings:



And maybe I can link to an a blog entry on the method you described?
Comment 9 written by brian on 7 November 2007, at 11:51 AM

I think that's a good idea. This 'feature' needs wider publicity, as someone approaching this afresh can use a 'standard' application.cfc with a standard binding example and have no clue why it's not working
Comment 10 written by Justin Schier on 13 October 2008, at 7:04 PM

Ummm... I've been programming Coldfusion for 10 years, and I've been using your Application.cfc template for at least the last 3 or 4 in all my applications. Thanks so much for that!

BUT!

Today I was working on some Ajax calls direct to a CFC and they were returning a blank page. I could not figure out why for 2 hours until I found this page.

As soon as I put in Brian's code, it started working as expected. (THANK YOU BRIAN!)

What the F is up with having to do that?? Why does your template not work with direct calls to CFCs? I'm an advanced CF developer and you've got me on this one.

Anyway, it's not "very obvious" to me, sorry. I wish you would have put that comment in, as well as some kind of explanation WHY it disables CFC calls and HOW to enable them.

Thanks very much for all you do!!
Justin
Comment 11 written by Raymond Camden on 13 October 2008, at 8:03 PM

Please check the template now. Nice and "loud" I would hope. :)
Comment 12 written by Will on 13 March 2009, at 12:38 PM

So is it that using an INCLUDE to run the cfc that breaks it? Or will the cfc not even run unless you force invoke it through the onrequest. Let's say my onRequest was essentially empty, we run http://site/my.cfc?var1=1&var2=2 and my.cfc is setup for remote. If onRequest is present but empty, will it still run?
Comment 13 written by Raymond Camden on 13 March 2009, at 12:48 PM

Hmm. I think it will break, but why not try it yourself and tell us. :)
Comment 14 written by Will Broadhead on 13 March 2009, at 3:13 PM

Okay. I tried it out. Yes, it works fine. As long as your application.cfc/applicationOnStart isn't the driver (I let the index.cfm drive the content by pageid), it lets a direct cfc call go through fine, and thus, ajax calls should work fine. So it does seem to be the include call that breaks a cfc call. Which makes sense. I wouldn't really expect cfinclude to run a cfc.

It consumes the url vars as both url and argument input. I just output from onRequestStart and the called function to screen to test:

SIMPLE FUNCTION:
ffunction name="fn_TestGateway" access="remote" returntype="any" hint="TEST" >
<cfargument name='testytester'>
<HR/>fn_TestGateway HAS RUN CORRECTLY...<HR/>
<cfif isDefined('arguments.testytester')>ARGUMENT: <cfoutput>#arguments.testytester#</cfoutput><br /></cfif>
<cfif isDefined('url.testytester')>URL: <cfoutput>#URL.testytester#</cfoutput><br /></cfif>
</cffunction>

REQUEST:
http://mfi/_code/_application/_initializeApplicati...

RESULT:
- in onRequestStart - x=123
fn_TestGateway HAS RUN CORRECTLY... ARGUMENT: howdy
URL: howdy
Comment 15 written by Will Broadhead on 17 March 2009, at 8:06 PM

My apologies, Ben just set me straight. I was confusing onRequest with OnRequestStart. After reading the onRequest docs from Adobe, I see no reason I would ever want to tangle with it. And thus all the brouhaha about how to handle its use as it intercepts the main cfm/cfc call. So my whole post was moot. Thanks for your patience and understanding! :)
Comment 16 written by Phil Williams on 30 July 2009, at 6:46 AM

Hi Ray,
I must be going blind but I can't find the link to the MX7 version of your template, could you post a link?

Thanks...

Phil
Comment 17 written by Raymond Camden on 30 July 2009, at 11:23 PM

http://www.coldfusionjedi.com/downloads/app.pdf
Comment 18 written by Phil Williams on 31 July 2009, at 2:42 AM

Excellent, thanks Ray :)

On a side note, I've downloaded BlogCFC and found a couple of issues, where would be the best place to report them? Excellent application overall though...

Phil
Comment 19 written by Raymond Camden on 1 August 2009, at 3:23 PM

I'd report the issues at the RIAForge project page:

http://blogcfc.riaforge.org