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DEVELOPING COLDFUSION 9 APPLICATIONS
Building Blocks of ColdFusion Applications
<html>
<head>
<title>Test for Include</title>
</head>
<body>
<cfinclude template="header.cfm">
</body>
</html>
Save the file as includeheader.cfm and view it in a browser.
3
The header appears along with the logo.
Recommended uses
Consider using the
cfinclude
• For page headers and footers
• To divide a large page into multiple logical chunks that are easier to understand and manage
• For large "snippets" of code that are used in many places but do not require parameters or fit into the model of a
function or tag
About user-defined functions
User-defined functions (UDFs) let you create application elements in a format in which you pass in arguments and get
a return a value. You can define UDFs using CFScript or the
differences, of which the following are the most important:
• If you use the
cffunction
• If you write your function using CFScript, you cannot include CFML tags.
You can use UDFs in your application pages just as you use standard ColdFusion functions. When you create a
function for an algorithm or procedure that you use frequently, you can then use the function wherever you need the
procedure, just as you would use a ColdFusion built-in function. For example, the following line calls the function
MyFunct and passes it two arguments:
<cfset returnValue=MyFunct(Arg1, Arg2)>
You can group related functions in a ColdFusion component. For more information, see
components" on page 149.
As with custom tags, you can easily distribute UDFs to others. For example, the Common Function Library Project at
www.cflib.org
is an open-source collection of CFML user-defined functions.
Recommended uses
Typical uses of UDFs include, but are not limited to, the following:
• Data manipulation routines, such as a function to reverse an array
• String and date and time routines, such as a function to determine whether a string is a valid IP address
• Mathematical calculation routines, including standard trigonometric and statistical operations or calculating loan
amortization
• Routines that call functions externally, for example using COM or CORBA, such as routines to determine the space
available on a Windows file system drive
tag in the following cases:
tag, your function can include CFML tags.
Last updated 8/5/2010
tag. The two techniques have several
cffunction
"Using ColdFusion
148
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