MACROMEDIA COLDFUSION MX 61-GETTING STARTED BUILDING COLDFUSION... User manual

Getting Started Building
ColdFusion MX Applications

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Part Number ZCF61M300
Acknowledgments
Project Management: Randy Nielsen
Writer: Randy Nielsen
Editor: Linda Adler, Noreen Maher
First Edition: May 2002
Second Edition: August 2003
Macromedia, Inc.
600 Townsend St.
San Francisco, CA 94103

3
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
About Macromedia ColdFusion MX documentation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Documentation set . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Viewing online documentation. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 8
PART I: Welcome to ColdFusion
CHAPTER 1: Introducing ColdFusion MX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
What is ColdFusion MX? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
The ColdFusion application server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
The ColdFusion Markup Language . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12
The ColdFusion MX Administrator . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13
Using ColdFusion MX with Macromedia Flash MX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14
CHAPTER 2: CFML Basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Working with ColdFusion pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Creating a ColdFusion page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16
Understanding CFML elements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Variables . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Creating variables with the cfset tag . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21
Displaying variable output . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Working with CFML expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23
Building expressions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 24
Understanding conditional processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
Processing form data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Form processing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28
Commenting your code. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

4 Contents
CHAPTER 3: Database Fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Understanding database basics. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
What is a relational database? . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32
Understanding relational tables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
About SQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Using SQL to interact with a database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Using SQL with ColdFusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
About data sources . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Writing SQL and CFML statements to interact with a data source. . . . . . . . . . 35
CFML tags that interact with a database. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 35
CHAPTER 4: Configuring Your Development Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37
Verifying the tutorial file structure. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38
Configuring database connection and debugging options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Configuring the connection to the sample database file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 39
Enabling debugging options . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 42
Macromedia development environment tools . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44
The Dreamweaver MX environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Configuring Dreamweaver MX for ColdFusion development. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Configuring HomeSite+ for ColdFusion development . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
PART II: Building a ColdFusion Application
CHAPTER 5: Lesson 1: Preparing to Build the Sample Application . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Application development steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 49
Determining the application functional requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Determining the data requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Designing the database for your application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 52
Developing the sample application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 54
How to proceed . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
CHAPTER 6: Lesson 2: Writing Your First ColdFusion Application . . . . . . . . . . . 57
Creating your first ColdFusion application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Application development steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 59
Using a web page to list trips . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Converting to a dynamic web page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Using SQL with cfquery to dynamically retrieve information . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62
Creating a dynamic web page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 63
Developing a search capability. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Designing the search criteria page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 66
Building the Search Results page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Completing the Trip Search Results page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 73
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75
In the next lesson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 75

Contents 5
CHAPTER 7: Lesson 3: Creating a Main Application Page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 77
Enhancing the Trip Maintenance application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 78
Showing additional trip details . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Avoiding the potential security risk when using dynamic SQL . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Linking the Search Results page to the Trip Detail page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 85
Enhancing the look of the search results and detail pages . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Creating the main application page from the Trip Detail page . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Adding navigation buttons to browse database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 89
Adding database maintenance buttons . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
In the next lesson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 92
CHAPTER 8: Lesson 4: Validating Data to Enforce
Business Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Enhancing the Trip Maintenance application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Using an HTML form to collect data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 94
Developing code to validate data and enforce business rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Validating data using a server-side action page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 96
Validating data on the client using ColdFusion form tags . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 99
Using cfselect tag to present valid event types . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 102
Using other client-side script to reduce edits on the server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Validating the existence of the trip photo file . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 106
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
In the next lesson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 108
CHAPTER 9: Lesson 5: Implementing the Browsing and Maintenance Database
Functions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Enhancing the Trip Maintenance application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Application development steps . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Using dynamic SQL to browse (navigate) the Trips table . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 111
Building the maintenance action page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Linking the Trip Detail page to the Trip Search page . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 114
Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
In the next lesson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
CHAPTER 10: Lesson 6: Adding and Updating SQL Data . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 117
Completing the Trip Maintenance application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Writing code to save new trips to the database . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
Updating a SQL row using cfupdate. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 124
Linking the Trip Edit page to the main page. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
SQL Update . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Updating multiple records . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 129
Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
INDEX. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131

6 Contents

7
INTRODUCTION
Getting Started Building ColdFusion MX Applications is intended for anyone who needs to begin
programming in the ColdFusion MX development environment. This book includes a tutorial,
which uses supporting files that are installed if you chose to install example applications. If you
did not install the ColdFusion MX example applications, you can download the tutorial files
from the ColdFusion Support center on the Macromedia website.
About Macromedia ColdFusion MX documentation
The ColdFusion MX documentation is designed to provide support for the complete spectrum of
participants.
Documentation set
The ColdFusion documentation set includes the following titles:
Book Description
Installing and Using
ColdFusion MX
Describes system installation and basic configuration for Windows, Solaris,
Linux, and HP-UX.
Configuring and
Administering
ColdFusion MX
Part I describes how to manage the ColdFusion environment, including
connecting to your data sources and configuring security for your
applications. Part II describes Verity search tools and utilities that you can
use for configuring the Verity K2 Server search engine, as well as creating,
managing, and troubleshooting Verity collections.
Developing ColdFusion
MX Applications
Describes how to develop your dynamic web applications, including
retrieving and updating your data, using structures, and forms.
Getting Started
Building ColdFusion
MX Applications
Contains an overview of ColdFusion features and application development
procedures. Includes a tutorial that guides you through the process of
developing an example ColdFusion application.
CFML Reference Provides descriptions, syntax, usage, and code examples for all ColdFusion
tags, functions, and variables.
CFML Quick Reference A brief guide that shows the syntax of ColdFusion tags, functions, and
variables.

8 Introduction
Viewing online documentation
All ColdFusion MX documentation is available online in HTML and Adobe Acrobat Portable
Document Format (PDF) files. Go to the documentation home page for ColdFusion MX on the
Macromedia website: www.macromedia.com.

PART I
Welcome to ColdFusion
Part I provides an introduction to ColdFusion. It defines ColdFusion and
provides an overview of the ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML). It also
provides generic database concepts, and information about how to prepare your
development environment for using the tutorial in Part II of this book.
Introducing ColdFusion MX . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11
CFML Basics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 15
Database Fundamentals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Configuring Your Development Environment . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37