User Guide

Using a web page to list trips 63

Displaying the query result using cfoutput

In Chapter 2, “CFML Basics,” on page 15, you learned that the ColdFusion

cfoutput tag is an

easy mechanism to display literal text and the contents of variables. Additionally, the

cfoutput

tag significantly simplifies displaying the results of queries. When used to display the results from

a query, the

cfoutput tag automatically loops through the record set for you. You simply specify

the name of the query in the QUERY attribute of the

cfoutput tag:

All the code between the cfoutput start and end tags is the output code block. The output code

block executes repeatedly, once for each row in the record set. However, if the query returns no

rows, ColdFusion skips the code contained in the output code block.

...output code block...

</cfoutput>

Displaying the column contents from the SQL statement

In CFML you surround variables with pound signs (#) to display their contents using the

cfoutput tag. You also use this approach with column names specified in the SELECT statement

of a

cfquery. For instance, when you want to display the trip names from the SQL query, you

would simply use

#tripName# within the output code block.

#tripname#

</cfoutput>

For additional information about using SQL with cfquery and cfoutput, see Developing

ColdFusion MX Applications.

Creating a dynamic web page

In the following exercises you will build a dynamic Trip Listing web page that is always current.

The first exercise guides you through constructing a query to retrieve information from the

database. In the second exercise, you will enhance the query to sort the query results and to

display other pertinent trip information.

For your convenience, the following figure shows the Compass Travel Trips table. You can refer

to this table to verify the names of the columns you use in the queries in the exercises.