Programming ColdFusion

Organization

This book is divided into 24 chapters and 4 appendixes, as follows:

Chapter 1

Introduces the book and gives a high-level overview of the components that make up the ColdFusion development platform.

Chapter 2

Gets you started using ColdFusion and covers such topics as datatypes, variables, expressions, conditional processing, and looping.

Chapter 3

Looks at passing data between templates using HTML forms and hyperlinks.

Chapter 4

Gets you started using ColdFusion to query databases. Provides an overview of Structured Query Language (SQL) and demonstrates its use within ColdFusion applications.

Chapter 5

Covers techniques for adding, updating, and deleting database records.

Chapter 6

Looks at the complex datatypes available in ColdFusion: lists, arrays, structures, and query objects.

Chapter 7

Investigates methods for maintaining state in ColdFusion applications.

Chapter 8

Covers the basics of application security and discusses several methods and models for securing your ColdFusion applications.

Chapter 9

Explains several techniques for implementing error and exception handling within your ColdFusion applications.

Chapter 10

Gives an overview of the dynamic form controls provided by ColdFusion as an extension to standard HTML form controls.

Chapter 11

Covers several advanced techniques for querying and displaying data as well as advanced SQL topics.

Chapter 12

Deals with techniques for manipulating files and directories on both local and remote servers.

Chapter 13

Shows how to use ColdFusion to send email through SMTP servers and how to retrieve messages from POP3 servers. A working example of a web-based mail client is included.

Chapter 14

Demonstrates how to interact with other web servers via the HTTP GET and POST methods using ColdFusion.

Chapter 15

Gives a general overview of the Lightweight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP) and shows how to use ColdFusion to interface with LDAP-enabled directories.

Chapter 16

Explains how ColdFusion interacts with a bundled version of Verity’s VDK, K2 Server, and Spider engines to index and search both file- and query-based content.

Chapter 17

Introduces regular expressions and demonstrates ways to integrate them into your ColdFusion applications.

Chapter 18

Provides an overview of CFScript, a server-side scripting language modeled after JavaScript that can be used in place of some of ColdFusion’s tag-based language constructs. It also covers User Defined Functions (UDF), a new capability added in ColdFusion 5.0.

Chapter 19

Shows how to extend the core capabilities of the ColdFusion language through reusable components called Custom Tags.

Chapter 20

Covers the Web Distributed Data Exchange (WDDX), an XML-based technology for sharing data across disparate platforms and programming languages.

Chapter 21

Explains how ColdFusion can be used to read and write to the system registry. For non-Windows versions of ColdFusion (Unix/Linux), a miniversion of the registry is created when ColdFusion is installed.

Chapter 22

Explains how to schedule one-time and recurring tasks using ColdFusion’s built-in scheduler.

Chapter 23

Covers the basics of using ColdFusion to interact with COM-, CORBA-, and Java-based objects, as well as command-line programs.

Chapter 24

Shows how to use ColdFusion’s built-in server-side graphing and charting capabilities to produce dynamic charts and graphs.

Appendix A

A complete CFML tag reference that includes several previously undocumented tags.

Appendix B

A complete CFML function reference that contains numerous previously undocumented functions. The function reference includes a working example for each function wherever possible.

Appendix C

Contains the schema and sample data for all database tables used in the book’s examples.

Appendix D

Provides a comprehensive listing of free ColdFusion resources available over the Internet. These resources include user groups, e-zines, support forums, and other community-minded resources.