User Guide

244 Chapter 13 Extending ColdFusion Pages with CFML Scripting
About CFScript
The ColdFusion Server-side scripting language, CFScript, offers ColdFusion
functionality in script syntax.
This JavaScript-like language offers the same control flow, but without tags. CFScript
regions are bounded by <
cfscript> and </cfscript> tags. You can use ColdFusion
expressions, but not CFML tags, inside a CFScript region.
CFScript example
The following example shows how you can rewrite a block of cfset tags in CFScript:
Using CFML tags
<cfset employee=structnew()>
<cfset employee.firstname=Form.firstname>
<cfset employee.lastname=Form.lastname>
<cfset employee.email=Form.email>
<cfset employee.phone=Form.phone>
<cfset employee.department=Form.department>
<cfoutput>
About to add #Form.firstname# #Form.lastname#<br>
</cfoutput>
Using CFScript
<cfscript>
employee=StructNew();
employee.firstname=Form.firstname;
employee.lastname=Form.lastname;
employee.email=Form.email;
employee.phone=Form.phone;
employee.department=Form.department;
WriteOutput("About to add " & Form.firstname & " " & Form.lastname);
</cfscript>
The WriteOutput function appends text to the page output stream. Although you
can call this function anywhere within a page, it is most useful inside a
cfscript
block. For information on the
WriteOutput function, see the CFML Reference.
Supported statements
CFScript supports the following statements:
if-else while do-while
for break continue
for-in switch-case var (in custom functions only)
return (in custom functions only)