User Guide

232 Chapter 2: ColdFusion Tags
cfinclude
Description
Embeds references to ColdFusion pages in CFML. You can embed cfinclude tags recursively.
For another way to encapsulate CFML, see
cfmodule on page 305. (A ColdFusion page was
formerly sometimes called a ColdFusion template or a template.)
Category
Flow-control tags, Page processing tags
Syntax
<cfinclude
template = "template_name">
See also
cfcache, cfflush, cfheader, cfhtmlhead, cfsetting, cfsilent
History
ColdFusion MX: Changed error behavior: if you use this tag to include a CFML page whose
length is zero bytes, you do not get an error.
Attributes
Usage
ColdFusion searches for included files in the following locations:
1. In the directory of the current page or a directory relative to the current page
2. In directories mapped in the ColdFusion MX Administrator
You cannot specify an absolute URL or file system path for the file to include. You can only use
paths relative to the directory of the including page or a directory that is registered in the
ColdFusion MX Administrator Mappings. The following
cfinclude statements will work,
assuming that the
myinclude.cfm file exists in the specified directory:
<cfinclude template="myinclude.cfm">
<cfinclude template="../myinclude.cfm">
<cfinclude template="/CFIDE/debug/myinclude.cfm">
But these will not work:
<cfinclude template="C:\CFusionMX7\wwwroot\doccomments\myinclude.cfm">
<cfinclude template="http://localhost:8500/doccomments/myinclude.cfm">
The included file must be a syntactically correct and complete CFML page. For example, to
output data from within the included page, you must have a
cfoutput tag, including the end tag,
on the included page, not the referring page. Similarly, you cannot span a
cfif tag across the
referring page and the included page; it must be complete within the included page.
Attribute Req/Opt Default Description
template Required A logical path to a ColdFusion page.