Programming instructions

What is ColdFusion MX? 9
The ColdFusion application server
The ColdFusion application server is a software program that resides on the same
computer as your web server software. It is the program that parses (reads and interprets)
and processes supplied instructions. These instructions are passed to ColdFusion through
ColdFusion pages, which use a CFM or CFC file extension. A ColdFusion page looks
like an HTML page but contains special tags that instruct the ColdFusion server to
perform specific operations.
How ColdFusion processes pages
The following steps explain how the ColdFusion server processes a ColdFusion page:
1 The ColdFusion server looks at the content of the page and searches for the following
ColdFusion instructions:
• Tags that begin with cf.
• Variables and functions that are always surrounded by pound signs (#).
2 If the Coldfusion server finds any HTML or plain text in the page, the ColdFusion
server returns it to the web server untouched.
3 The ColdFusion server processes all the ColdFusion instructions found, and returns
any remaining results to the web server. The web server then sends the entire output
to the browser.
The ColdFusion Markup Language
ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) is a a tag-based language similar to HTML that
uses special tags and functions. With CFML you can enhance your standard HTML files
with database commands, conditional operators, and high-level formatting functions,
and rapidly produce easy-to-maintain web applications.
CFML looks similar to HTML: it includes start and end tags, and each tag is enclosed in
angle brackets. All ending tags are preceded with a forward slash (/) and all tag names are
preceded with cf; for example:
<cfstarttagname> </cfendtagname>
Building applications with CFML
You build ColdFusion applications as a series of pages that use CFML. Developers can
extend this language by creating their own custom tags or user-defined functions (UDF),
or by integrating COM, C++, and Java components (such as JSP tag libraries).
Interacting with data sources
ColdFusion applications can interact with any database that supports a JDBC
technology-based driver. A JDBC technology-based driver uses an Application
Programming Language (API) to execute SQL statements to databases on most
platforms. However, ColdFusion is not limited to JDBC data sources. You can also
interact with existing Open Database connectivity (ODBC) data sources by using
ODBC Socket, a driver that interacts with an existing ODBC driver.