User Guide

Creating ColdFusion components 207
Putting executable code in a separate file
You can put executable code in a separate file from the main component definition page. By
placing the method execution code in a separate file, you can separate property initialization code,
meta information, and the method definition shell from the executable method definition code.
This technique lets you modularize your code and helps prevent CFML pages from getting too
long and complex.
To separate the component method code, use a
cfinclude tag on the component definition page
to call the page that contains the component method code.
Note: If your method takes arguments or returns data to the page that invokes it, the cfargument tag
and the
cfreturn tag must be on the component definition page, not on the included page.
To create a component method using the cfinclude tag:
1. Create a tellTime.cfc file with the following code:
<cfcomponent>
<cffunction name="getUTCTime">
<cfinclude template="getUTCTime.cfm">
<cfreturn utcStruct.Hour & ":" & utcStruct.Minute>
</cffunction>
</cfcomponent>
2. Create a ColdFusion page with the following code, and save it as getUTCTime.cfm in the same
directory as tellTime.cfc:
<cfscript>
serverTime=now();
utcTime=GetTimeZoneInfo();
utcStruct=structNew();
utcStruct.Hour=DatePart("h", serverTime);
utcStruct.Minute=DatePart("n", serverTime);
utcStruct.Hour=utcStruct.Hour + utcTime.utcHourOffSet;
utcStruct.Minute=utcStruct.Minute + utcTime.utcMinuteOffSet;
if (utcStruct.Minute LT 10)
utcStruct.Minute = "0" & utcStruct.Minute;
</cfscript>
In the example, the getUTCTime method definition calls the getUTCTime.cfm file with the
cfinclude tag. The getUTCTime.cfm code calculates the UTC time representation of the
current time and populates a structure with hour and minute values. The method in
tellTime.cfc then uses the information in the structure to return the current UTC time as a
string to the calling page. The included page must not include a
cfreturn statement.
Initializing instance data
Some components have instance data, which is data that persists as long as the component
instance exists. For example, a shopping cart component might have instance data that includes
the IDs and quantities of items that the user puts in the shopping cart. Instance data is often
shared by several methods that can create, delete, or modify the data.