Adobe ColdFusion 8 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 1: Getting Started

Working with Expressions

I’ve used the term expressions a few times in this chapter. What is an expression? The official ColdFusion documentation explains that expressions are “language constructs that allow you to create sophisticated applications.” A better way to understand it is that expressions are strings of text made up of one or more of the following:

• Literal text (strings), numbers, dates, times, and other values

• Variables

• Operators (+ for addition, & for concatenation, and so on)

• Functions

So, UCase(FirstName) is an expression, as are "Hello, my name is Ben", 12+4, and DateFormat(Now()). And even though many people find it hard to articulate exactly what an expression is, realize that expressions are an important part of the ColdFusion ...