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

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

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

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