Client Variable Storage Options; Purge Client Variables; Disable Global Client Variable Updates - MACROMEDIA COLDFUSION 4.5-ADMINISTRING COLDFUSION SERVER Manual

Chapter 3: Configuring ColdFusion Server
supports the SQL required for the client variable repository. In addition, OLE DB
data sources are not supported for use as a client data source repository.
4. Click Create to create the new data source.
To enable your client variable data source:
1. Open the ColdFusion Administrator to the Variables page, which is in the Server
group.
2. Select the name of the data source you want to use for storing client variables in
the drop down list box, and click Add.
3. On the Create Client Variable Storage page, select the options you want.

Client variable storage options

When you configure a data source for client variable storage, you have several options
for configuring the data source:
Purging variables older than a specified number of days
Configuring global client variable updates
Automatically creating tables in the client variable data source

Purge client variables

Ordinarily, you don't want to have client variables preserved indefinitely. ColdFusion
allows you to set a limit to the length of time a client variable remains active. You can
configure your client variable data source to expire client variables after some number
of days you specify.
As an example of how this can be useful, take the case of an online store. A user adds
items to his or her shopping basket, the details of which are stored as client variables in
a ColdFusion data source, but never completes the transaction, instead, choosing to
end the session. You want to be able to easily clear the contents of the shopping cart
after some number of days. Enabling ColdFusion to purge clients can help keep your
client variables data source from getting cluttered with data you don't need.

Disable global client variable updates

By default ColdFusion updates client variables for every page request. Use this option
if you don't want ColdFusion to perform these updates. When updates are disabled,
ColdFusion only updates global client variables when they are first created and when
they are updated. Since updating global client variables for every page request requires
a trip to the data source and back, disabling updates helps to improve the performance
of your application pages.
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