A review of ColdFusion MX 7 that appeared in Linux Magazine

1. REVIEWS
COVER STORY ColdFusion sollte hier stehen
Schlagwort MX 7 Server
A look at Macromedia’s new ColdFusion MX 7 Server for Linux
COLD NEW TOOL
run-time variables that you can tweak to
improve overall performance. This fea-
ture gives you an easy-to-use interface to
manage settings that would require a
text file (php.ini) in PHP.
The Administrator also allows you to
manage data sources, web services,
scheduled tasks, tag extensions (more
on this later), sandbox security, and
more. With ColdFusion, you are discour-
aged from going near any configuration
files; the configuration options available
through the Administrator mean you’ll
probably never have to.
Rich Content
Macromedia is without a doubt the mas-
ter of rich content on the Internet. The
Flash format [3] for web-based anima-
tions, games, and user friendly interfaces
is almost the de facto standard. Java
Applets and ActiveX controls seem
clumsy in comparison.
It is no surprise, then, that Macrome-
dia have taken advantage of their own
Macromedia's new ColdFusion MX 7 Server creates highly available popular Flash technology to enhance the
content output options in ColdFusion.
and high performance web applications. We'll show you what is new Flash format is an option when render-
ing charts and input forms, and Macro-
and what is changed with the latest ColdFusion release.
media’s new FlashPaper [4] format
(Figure 2) is an option when outputting
BY LARKIN CUNNINGHAM
documents such as reports. Adobe’s PDF
(Portable Document Format) is also sup-
ported. The choice of PDF and FlashPa-
T
he release of ColdFusion MX 7 Macromedia has continued to develop per means you can output content that is
[1] marks the tenth anniversary ColdFusion and has added major guaranteed to be printable exactly as it
of the ColdFusion web develop- enhancements. This latest release has appears in the web browser.
ment platform. Originally a C+ Win-
+ further added to ColdFusion’s arsenal of Support for Flash and PDF on Linux
dows application, ColdFusion is now a rich content generation with improved has improved in recent months, meaning
J2EE-based development environment charting capabilities, report generation it should not be a major problem to
that runs on Linux, AIX, Mac OS X, and using FlashPaper and PDF, and Flash- deploy a ColdFusion intranet application
Solaris, as well as Windows. based input forms, allowing for complex on a Linux desktop environment while
The ColdFusion platform was created form layouts such as tabbing. offering all the rich content features you
and developed by Allaire Corporation. want.
The Administrator
Macromedia acquired ColdFusion in
The CFCHART Tag
2001 and released what would have been ColdFusion comes with a web-based
ColdFusion version 6.0, calling the prod- administrator application (Figure 1) to ColdFusion’s CFCHART tag allows you to
uct ColdFusion MX to promote a connec- help you manage your ColdFusion envi- output smoothly rendered charts in
tion with other products in Macrome- ronment. The admin application allows PNG, JPEG, or Flash format. The Flash
dia's MX line, such as Dreamweaver and you to adjust settings for client variable format charts provide a number of addi-
Flash. caching, Java / JVM memory, and other tional charting options. such as lines or
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2. COVER STORY
REVIEWS
Schlagwort sollte hier stehen
ColdFusion MX 7 Server
Figure 1: The ColdFusion Administrator keeps you away from the Figure 2: An example of a FlashPaper document embedded in a web
command line and configuration files. page.
bars rising from the x-axis to the correct graphing, it has to be said, is more pol- ters to configure your charts in Cold-
data point on the graph or pie charts fad- ished, with anti-aliased smooth edges, Fusion.
ing into view. Each chart format allows and the native ColdFusion graphing sys-
Flash Forms, ActionScript,
for clickable area maps, which gives the tem is easier to configure.
and Remoting
user the power to assign URL values to In Figure 3, you can see an example
chart segments. This feature gives you chart showing levels of spam and Flash-based input forms allow for client
the possibility of creating drill down viruses in the past 30 days. In Listing 3, side processing, validation, and form
charts for Management Information Sys- you will find the CFCHART tags used to rendering. Flash-based input forms
tems (MIS) or Decision Support Systems create the chart depicted in Figure 3. exceed the capabilities of standard
(DSS). ColdFusion offers many other The CFCHARTSERIES tag is used to HTML and JavaScript and are easier to
chart type options. For instance, you can specify each line or bar in a line or bar implement and deploy than Java Applet-
choose to include line, bar, pie, and scat- chart and each segment in a pie chart. In based input forms. Not only do Flash
ter charts. the example described previously, we forms give you more control over how
PHP offers some third party options loop through some queries, creating data is entered to enforce business rules,
for creating graphs. Possibly the most many data points with the CFCHART- Flash also makes the user experience
popular graph option available with PHP DATA tag. As you can see in Listing 3, much richer. Figure 4 shows an example
is JpGraph, which offers a more compre- you can use quite a number of parame- of a Flash form that uses tabbing, a cal-
hensive array of chart types than Cold-
The Tag-Based Approach
Fusion. JpGraph is available free for
non-commercial use. ColdFusion’s
CFML is a tag based language with your between hashes (#) and included
CFML and HTML store in .cfm web between CFML tags or as parameters to
Listing 1: empquery.cfm pages. Rather than the traditional script- a CFML tag are interpreted by ColdFu-
ing approach used by PHP and ASP, sion. Including the query as a parameter
01 <CFQUERY NAME= qryGetREmps CFML uses tags similar to HTML, with to the CFOUTPUT tag causes the tag con-
DATASOURCE= #MyDSN# > opening and closing tags. Not all CFML tents to be repeated for each row in the
has to be tag based, however, because query’s result set.
02 SELECT * FROM
many tags have script equivalents. List-
employees Let's compare this with the PHP5 /
ing 1 shows a simple SQL query fol- mysqli [2] equivalent in Listing 2. Excep-
03 </CFQUERY>
lowed by the output of the query results. tion catching code has been omitted for
04
Notice how the CFML tags take parame- simplicity.
05 <CFOUTPUT QUERY= qryGetEmps > ters like standard HTML. In the example As you can see from the code snippets,
above, the CFQUERY tag was used to CFML can have the advantage of being
06 Name: #qryGetEmps.
populate a result set from the database easier to write and easier to read than
FirstName# #qryGetEmps.
connection created using the MyDSN equivalent PHP code. For a web designer
LastName#<br>
connection string defined in the Cold- with little or no background in program-
07 Address: #qryGetEmps. Fusion Administrator (more on this later). ming, CFML is easier and quicker to
Address1#, #qryGetEmps. Outputting the result set data is easily learn than PHP. CFML lets a relative nov-
Address2# achieved using the CFOUTPUT tag. Vari- ice create quite powerful code with just a
ables and function calls enclosed few tags.
08 </CFOUTPUT>
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3. REVIEWS ColdFusion MX 7 Server
the case of CFML custom tags, you can
simply create a file containing your cus-
tom tag CFML code and place it in a
directory in ColdFusion’s custom tag
path (similar to a classpath). Java and
C++ custom tags (referred to as CFX
tags), however, must be explicitly
declared using the ColdFusion Adminis-
trator. Custom tags can then be used like
any other CFML tag, as if they were a
part of the core language. This is possi-
ble in PHP also, but it usually involves
either including other PHP source into
your page or recompiling PHP with a
new module.
Because ColdFusion runs in a J2EE
application server, you also have access
to Java classes in the JVM’s classpath
and in the WEB-INF/lib and WEB-INF/
classes directories (as you would also
expect with Tomcat, for example). Using
the CFOBJECT tag, you can create
objects, allowing access to functions and
methods. Access to JavaBeans is also
Figure 3: The CFCHART tags allow you to easily create stunning graphs
possible.
endar control, headings, and additional This allows a separation of business Interoperation between CFML, JSP,
layout features. logic from Flash presentation logic. and Servlet pages is also possible. This
ActionScript is the scripting language allows you to maintain legacy JSP /
Object-Oriented
used to interact with Flash MX. You can
Programming Database Abstraction
use ActionScript in your ColdFusion
code to interact with a Flash Remoting While both CFML and PHP are histori-
CFML includes, by default, a database
server to allow your ColdFusion applica- cally structured programming languages,
abstraction layer that allows you to write
tion to interact with advanced Flash MX both implement object-oriented features. database-independent applications. The
applications and animations. A Flash Neither can be called true object-ori- CFQUERY tag, as an example, only
MX developer who doesn’t know CFML ented languages, however, as they do requires the DATASOURCE parameter
can still build a server-side ActionScript not implement all of the features of true to be able to connect to a database and
that interacts with ColdFusion resources. object-oriented languages such as C++ perform a SQL query. Like ODBC, Cold-
Fusion offers a database abstraction
or Java. CFML provides what are called
Listing 2: empquery.php layer. ColdFusion’s database abstraction
ColdFusion Components or CFCs. CFCs
layer can support ODBC connections
support encapsulation, inheritance, and
01 $dbconn = new mysqli($dbhost, and native database connections using
introspection. CFCs are stored in .cfc
$dbuser, $dbpass, $dbname); JDBC. Included are drivers for MySQL
files rather than .cfm files.
(before 4.1), DB2, Informix, SQL Server,
02 Listing 4 shows a sample CFC file that
Sybase, Oracle, and J2EE Datasources
defines a component called Convert-
03 $result = (using JNDI). Oracle and Sybase drivers
Temp, which converts from Celcius to
$dbconn->query('SELECT * FROM are only included with the Enterprise
Fahrenheit and vice versa. Listing 5
employees'); edition of ColdFusion, however, you can
shows some sample CFML code that create data sources using your own
04
invokes the methods in the component. JDBC drivers (typically by copying a
05 while ($row = $result->fetch_
ColdFusion’s object-oriented features JAR file to an appropriate library direc-
assoc())
are not quite as elegant as PHP 5’s tory) and specifying the JDBC url and
06 { class name for your driver. You can
implementation of object-oriented func-
achieve something similar using a JNDI
tionality, but ColdFusion gives you what
07 printf( Name: %s
resource.
you need to create easily maintainable
%s<br> , $row['FirstName'],
There are ways of incorporating data-
component-based applications.
$row['LastName']);
base abstraction into PHP using ADODB
08 printf( Address: %s,
Extending ColdFusion and Pear DB, however, these techniques
%s , $row['Address1'],
require the installation of additional files
You can extend the functionality of Cold-
$row['Address2']); and can require you to include addi-
Fusion through the use of Custom Tags
09 } tional files into your PHP scripts.
written using CFML, Java, or C++. In
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4. REVIEWS
ColdFusion MX 7 Server
ColdFusion server and can be accessed obeying the instructions provided in
by multiple ColdFusion instances (by robots.txt and following links specified
installing ColdFusion in multiserver in HTML HREF, FRAME, and META
mode – more on this below). Using the Refresh / Redirect tags. The capabilities
ColdFusion Administrator, you can cre- provided by the Verity Spider allow you
ate a Collection. A Collection is a store to create an intelligent search facility on
on disk for Verity searchable content. your website.
A number of CFML tags are available
Editions
to index content (for example Plain text,
PDF document, and HTML documents) ColdFusion comes in three different edi-
and to search the content. You can also tions. The Developer edition can be
index content returned from a query. accessed from the local machine running
This feature of ColdFusion allows you to ColdFusion and two remote clients. This
quickly search through large amounts of makes it possible for a small team of
text much faster than using a SQL developers to work on application devel-
Figure 4: Flash Forms give you greater
SELECT query, where large text fields opment using the same ColdFusion
control over how users input their data.
(for example the TEXT datatype in instance. The Developer edition contains
Servlet applications while converting to MySQL) cannot be indexed. One area all of the functionality in ColdFusion and
CFML. You can incorporate CFML func- this technology can be deployed in is a is free to download.
tionality into your existing JSP applica- knowledge base. The Standard edition contains just
tions, for example, to take advantage of New in ColdFusion MX 7 is the Verity about all of the functionality of ColdFu-
ColdFusion’s charting or business report- Spider. The Verity Spider allows you to sion, except for some features concerned
ing features. Conversely, if there are cer- index whole directories or websites primarily with performance and avail-
tain operations best performed by a JSP dynamically. Unlike the CFINDEX CFML ability. Rather than explaining the fea-
or a Servlet page, you can incorporate tag, which allows you create specific tures that the professional edition con-
that functionality into CFML applica- indexes for searching, the Verity Spider tains, it is easier to talk about the fea-
tions. creates the searchable content dynami- tures only available in the third and final
cally. The Verity Spider supports a wide edition of ColdFusion, the Enterprise
Search Engine range of document types, including edition. The retail price for Standard Edi-
ColdFusion comes with a powerful HTML, PDF, Microsoft Office, Word- tion is US$ 1,299 / EUR 1,299. For a bit
search engine called Verity. The Verity Perfect, XML, and others. Verity Spider more money (Enterprise Edition costs
engine can run independently of the behaves just like other website spiders, US$ 5,999 / EUR 5,999), you get addi-
Listing 4: convertTemp.cfc
Listing 3: chart.cfm
01 <cfchart scalefrom=quot;0quot; item=quot;#DateFormat(scan_ 01 <cfcomponent>
scaleto=quot;1quot; showlegend=quot;yesquot; date,quot;dd-mmm-yyquot;)#
02 <!--- Celsius to Fahrenheit
markersize=quot;4quot; value=quot;#(pspam_sum + bspam_
conversion method. --->
labelformat=quot;percentquot; sum) / total_sum#quot;>
03 <cffunction name=quot;ctofquot;
02 title=quot;Percentage Spam and 08 </cfloop>
output=quot;falsequot;>
Viruses - Last 30 daysquot; backgr 09 </cfchartseries>
04 <cfargument name=quot;tempquot;
oundcolor=quot;##eeeeeequot;
10 <cfchartseries type=quot;linequot; required=quot;yesquot; type=quot;numericquot;>
showborder=quot;yesquot;
seriescolor=quot;redquot;
format=quot;FLASHquot; 05 <cfreturn
serieslabel=quot;Virusesquot;
xAxisTitle=quot;Datequot; ((temp*9)/5)+32>
markerstyle=quot;circlequot;>
03 yAxisTitle=quot;Percentage of 06 </cffunction>
11 <cfloop
Overallquot; chartHeight=quot;400quot; 07
query=quot;qry30daysquot;>
chartWidth=quot;540quot; show3D=quot;noquot;
08 <!--- Fahrenheit to Celsius
12 <cfchartdata
showXGridlines=quot;yesquot; seriesPla
conversion method. --->
item=quot;#DateFormat(scan_
cement=quot;clusterquot;>
date,quot;dd-mmm-yyquot;)#quot; 09 <cffunction name=quot;ftocquot;
04
value=quot;#virus_sum / total_ output=quot;falsequot;>
05 <cfchartseries type=quot;linequot; sum#quot;>
10 <cfargument name=quot;tempquot;
seriescolor=quot;bluequot;
13 </cfloop> required=quot;yesquot; type=quot;numericquot;>
serieslabel=quot;Spamquot;
14 </cfchartseries> 11 <cfreturn
markerstyle=quot;circlequot;>
((temp-32)*5/9)>
15
06 <cfloop
12 </cffunction>
16 </cfchart>
query=quot;qry30daysquot;>
13 </cfcomponent>
07 <cfchartdata
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5. REVIEWS ColdFusion MX 7 Server
tional enterprise level features. The next You can create custom event gateways other scripting language. And what
section describes the Enterprise edition. to interact with mobile devices and ColdFusion cannot do, you can do by
instant messaging servers, for example, extending ColdFusion with Java, JSP, or
Enterprise Edition Features or any other server application via any Servlets.
The Enterprise Manager allows you to networking protocol (using Java sock- The choice of whether you use Cold-
manage multiple instances of ColdFu- ets). You can also use the included gate- Fusion will depend on the nature of the
sion on a single server. The configura- ways to SMS, XMPP (Extensible Messag- application. For rich content sites using
tion is similar to other J2EE application ing and Presence Protocol), Sun’s JMS charts, Flash forms, FlashPaper or PDF,
servers like Tomcat, where an applica- (Java Messaging Service) and Lotus ColdFusion is a good choice. For general
tion server binary base is shared among Sametime. XMPP [6] is an open source purpose content management systems,
multiple private JVMs (Java Virtual instant messaging solution and protocol ColdFusion is also an excellent choice.
Machines). This means that multiple from the Jabber [7] Software Founda- For rapid development, ColdFusion
applications can enjoy isolation from tion. Lotus Sametime [8] is a product offers an easy-to-learn, tag-based script-
each other, providing better security and offered by IBM for instant messaging ing language that allows you to create
stability without the requirement of sep- and web conferencing. powerful applications with the minimum
arate dedicated servers. You can also The Enterprise edition also lets you of coding effort. For many, this is enough
cluster these applications to improve take advantage of a high performance, to justify even the price of the Enterprise
performance and availability. multithreaded business reporting engine. edition of ColdFusion, which allows you
JRun [5] is included with the Enter- This is ideal for Management Informa- to construct the kind of highly available
prise edition, giving you a commercial tion Systems, which can also use the and high-performing environment that
alternative to Tomcat. You can combine charting features to create drill down mission critical applications demand.
your ColdFusion application code with statistics. For many developers on the Linux
JSP or Servlet code in JRun. You can deploy your applications as platform, it will come down to a choice
You can deploy your ColdFusion appli- Java bytecode, avoiding the exposure of of PHP, JSP / Servlets, or ColdFusion.
cations using your preferred J2EE appli- your source code. This is important if ColdFusion is the only choice requiring
cation server. JRun, Weblogic, and Web- you want to protect your intellectual the purchase of a license for deployment
sphere are supported by Macromedia. property. in a production environment, though all
Security is enhanced for virtual host- are free to download and develop on.
Supported Platforms
ing environments using sandbox secu- And with an ever growing number of
rity. Sandbox security allows you to set ColdFusion is supported on a number of hosting companies offering support for
security policies, such as tag, function, platforms, including Linux, Windows, ColdFusion at reasonable prices, you
datasource, and IP address restrictions, Solaris, AIX, and Mac OS X (develop- may never need to pay for a license.
on directories. Applications running ment only). Red Hat Enterprise Linux In short, if you’re thinking about explor-
within the directories have no access to 2.1 and 3.0, SUSE Linux Enterprise ing the benefits of a commercial product,
the settings or files of any other applica- Server 8, and TurboLinux 8 (Japanese before you commit to anything else,
tions. only) are supported by Macromedia, you should at least investigate Cold-
though there should be no issues run- Fusion MX 7. ■
Listing 5: ning on CentOS 3, White Box Linux 3,
convTempForm.cfm INFO
and many other Linux distributions. In
theory, it should be possible to deploy
01 <cfinvoke [1] Macromedia ColdFusion MX 7:
ColdFusion on any Java platform. JRun, http://www.macromedia.com/
component=quot;convertTempquot;
BEA Weblogic, and IBM Websphere are software/coldfusion/
method=quot;ctofquot;
supported by Macromedia, but instruc-
[2] PHP 5 and the mysqli module:
02
tions are provided for Tomcat, and there http://www.php.net/manual/en/ref.
returnvariable=quot;newtempquot;
should be few issues deploying on JBoss mysqli.php
temp=30>
or Resin.
[3] Macromedia Flash: http://www.
03 <cfoutput>30 degrees Celsius ColdFusion can run either as a stand- macromedia.com/software/flash/
is #newtemp# degrees alone web server or in conjunction with
[4] Macromedia FlashPaper:
Farenheit.</cfoutput> Apache (1.3.27 or higher, 2.0.43 or http://www.macromedia.com/
higher), iPlanet 6.x, or Sun ONE 6.x.
04 <cfinvoke software/flashpaper/
component=quot;convertTempquot;
[5] Macromedia JRun: http://www.
Is ColdFusion For You?
method=quot;ftocquot; macromedia.com/software/jrun/
There is no simple answer to the ques-
05 [6] XMPP Protocol: http://www.xmpp.org
tion of why or when you might benefit
returnvariable=quot;newtempquot; [7] Jabber Software Foundation:
from using ColdFusion. For some appli-
temp=64> http://www.jabber.org
cations, PHP or Perl or JSP will be the
06 <cfoutput>64 degrees [8] Lotus Sametime:
better choice, and for others, ColdFusion
Fahrenheit is #newtemp# http://www.lotus.com/products/
is best. There is little you cannot do with
degrees Celsius.</cfoutput> product3.nsf/wdocs/homepage/
ColdFusion that you can do with any
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