User Guide

Table Of Contents
Including pages with the cfinclude tag 163
Using the cfinclude tag
When you use the
cfinclude tag to include one ColdFusion page in another ColdFusion page,
the page that includes another page is referred to as the calling page. When ColdFusion
encounters a
cfinclude tag it replaces the tag on the calling page with the output from
processing the included page. The included page can also set variables in the calling page.
The following line shows a sample
cfinclude tag:
<cfinclude template = "header.cfm">
Note: You cannot break CFML code blocks across pages. For example, if you open a cfoutput block
in a ColdFusion page, you must close the block on the same page; you cannot include the closing
portion of the block in an included page.
ColdFusion searches for included files as follows:
The template attribute specifies a path relative to the directory of the calling page.
If the template value is prefixed with a forward slash (/), ColdFusion MX searches for the
included file in directories that you specify on the Mappings page of the ColdFusion MX
Administrator.
Caution: A page must not include itself. Doing so causes an infinite processing loop, and you must
stop the ColdFusion server to resolve the problem.
To include code in a calling page:
1.
Create a ColdFusion page named header.cfm that displays your company’s logo. Your page can
consist of just the following lines, or it can include many lines to define an entire header:
<img src="mylogo.gif">
<br>
(For this example to work, you must also put your companys logo as a GIF file in the same
directory as the header.cfm file.)
2.
Create a ColdFusion page with the following content:
<html>
<head>
<title>Test for Include</title>
</head>
<body>
<cfinclude template="header.cfm">
</body>
</html>
3.
Save the file as includeheader.cfm and view it in a browser.
The header should appear along with the logo.