System information

Working with CFML expressions 23

Displaying variable output

Output is what remains after the ColdFusion server processes the CFML tags on a page. Usually

the output has two parts:

• Information that the user sees (for example, a confirmation message)

• Information that is stored by the server as a result of processing (for example, user input

collected from a form)

One of the tags that ColdFusion provides to display output is the

cfoutput tag. The cfoutput

tag instructs ColdFusion to process all the code between the

cfoutput start and end tags. The

syntax for the

cfoutput tag looks like this:

{normal html, text, and ColdFusion processing instructions}

</cfoutput>

To return the value of a variable, you must always surround the variable name with number signs

(#) and place the variable name between the

cfoutput start and end tags. For example, the

following code creates a variable and instructs the ColdFusion server to return the value of the

variable:

#variables.my_full_name#

</cfoutput>

The following text is the output:

Kaleigh Smith

Working with CFML expressions

Expressions are an important part of the ColdFusion language. Expressions are a collection of

different elements, ColdFusion variables, functions, and operators. You can think of them as

strings of text that consist of one or more of the following elements:

• Literal text (string), numbers, dates, and other values

• Variables

• Functions

• Operators (& for joining statements, + for addition, and so on)

This chapter includes many examples of expressions; for example:

• #variables.my_full_name#

• DateFormat(Now())

• my_first_name= "Kaleigh"

When you build expressions in ColdFusion, you can include simple and complex elements; how

you represent these elements determines how ColdFusion processes your application.