Coldfusion Replace

by Guest Blogger on October 22, 2012

A few replacement options for coldfusion

ColdFusion is the latest fad in web designing for its simplicity and swiftness that are well suited even for those with no programming background. This web designing app is super quick and is much faster than ASP or PHP. Data integration, error  tracking and fixing are smooth affairs in Cold Fusion unlike its counterparts. The best part is that it can connect to Java objects and COM components without installing extended functionality like in the case of ASP. On the downside ColdFusion can be used only with Windows and not with Linux operating system. ColdFusion is NOT free unlike PHP and can be used on one IP address. It uses simple custom tags like HTML codes and not the conventional programming syntax as  PHP.

However for webmasters who are looking out for a feasible alternative to ColdFusion could consider the pros and cons of other languages like PHP, ASP or Ruby on Rails.

Features of PHP

PHP is free

PHP is an open source program that can be freely downloaded and distributed unlike ColdFusion.  This would cut down the programming cost to nil. As it is royalty free software you can use it without having to pay any royalty to anyone at any time. It is free from any restrictive licenses and can be used in any country for any application as you like. Amazing flexibility is the main advantage of PHP unlike other languages like ASP.

PHP is flexible

PHP can be run on Windows, Linux and Apache alike. The zero initial costs and ongoing costs would cut down the bills of your servers. PHP has been in the market for more than a decade and is a proven technology. It is also constantly updated by a team of self driven experts to make it relevant to the contemporary needs and is run in 90% of web servers all over the world.

It can work in multiple databases

Unlike ColdFusion, PHP can be run from multiple databases like Oracle or IBM and  you can even migrate a programming language to PH to reduce the costs.

Simple to learn

PHP is fairly easy to pick up and even freshers who are straight out of college can fine hone their  PHP programming skills in a few months time.

ASP

The good and bad of ASP

Developed by Microsoft, ASP could be a costly option, which makes it less feasible for small time businesses. It is a Windows operating server scripting language. One of the obvious disadvantages is the limited abilities of client event control.

The advantages of ASP are its server side script that offers a control on web application logic. ASP processing involves a HTTP request being sent to web server before the ASP takes over. ASP thus offers a 3 tier programming, which is an easy way to implement new applications. ASP is compatible with around 55 languages and is a time tested programming model.

Ruby on Rails

It is an open source web development framework that helps to streamline the task of web designing in a simple manner. Ruby on Rails uses Convention over Configuration concept where you need to follow only the conventions and not complex configurations. Rails also enable the users to create prototypes for clients before the final web design is finalized. Last but not least,  Rails is database independent that can be used in any platform by making a few simple configuration changes.

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Coldfusion Timeformat

by Guest Blogger on October 16, 2012

ColdFusion time format: is widely used in web development applications to display the time portion of a date/time object in a readable format. Time-Format functions on two parameters:

  1. To display the  date/time object
  2. An optional mask value enabling one to control how exactly the date is formatted.

The basic function syntax:

ColdFusion: TimeFormat(time [, mask ])

PHP: string date ( string $format [, int $timestamp = time() ] )

ASP: <%Response.Write(Date())%>

 

Some important aspects to remember are:

  • Where the mask is not specified, the default mask of hh:mm tt is implemented.
  • Quotation marks are necessary when the date/time object is used as a string to prevent it being interpreted as a numeric representation.
  • The formatting commands are not case sensitive.
  • It is not required to separate the date and time values prior to using the data in the function.
  • Adding the “#” symbol around the date in the LSDate format or LSTime Format functions will yield an error.
  • Omitting the “#” symbol around LSDate Format or LSTime Format will display the command as text as the output instead of returning the formatted date.
Date International Date/time object, in the range of 100 AD-9999AD  
mask Characters that show how CodFusion displays a date:

  • d: Day of the month as digits;  no Leading zero for single-digit days
  • dd: Day of the month as digits; Leading zero for single-digit days
  • ddd: Day of the week as a three-letter abbreviation.
  • m: Month as digits; no Leading zero for single-digit months.
  • mm: Month as digits; no Leading zero for single-digit months
  • mmm: Month as a three-letter abbreviation
  • yy: Year as last two digits; Leading zero for years less than 10
  • gg: Period/era string. Ignored. Reserved. The following masks tell how to format the full date and cannot be combined with other masks.
  • Short:  equivalent to m/d/y
  • medium: equivalent to mmm d, yyyy
  • long: equivalent to mmmm d, yyyy
  • long: equivalent to mmmm d, yyyy
  • full: equivalent to dddd, mmmm d, yyyy
  
     

 

 

Example:

<cfset todayDate = Now()>

<body>

<h3>DateFormat Example</h3>

<p>Today’s date is <cfoutput>#todayDate#</cfoutput>.

<p>Using DateFormat, we can display that date in different ways:

<cfoutput>

<ul>

<li>#DateFormat(todayDate)#

<li>#DateFormat(todayDate, “mmm-dd-yyyy”)#

<li>#DateFormat(todayDate, “mmmm d, yyyy”)#

<li>#DateFormat(todayDate, “mm/dd/yyyy”)#

<li>#DateFormat(todayDate, “d-mmm-yyyy”)#

<li>#DateFormat(todayDate, “ddd, mmmm dd, yyyy”)#

<li>#DateFormat(todayDate, “short”)#

<li>#DateFormat(todayDate, “medium”)#

<li>#DateFormat(todayDate, “long”)#

<li>#DateFormat(todayDate, “full”)#

</ul>

</cfoutput>

 

ColdFusion vs. PHP and ASP:

Cold Fusion is known for its ease of use, as it is designed with non-programmers in mind, while PHP is programmer friendly. While ColdFusion has better error handling, database abstraction, and date parsing, PHP is faster and more efficient for complex programming tasks and trying out new ideas, and is more stable and less resource-intensive. Considering the pros and cons, PHP runs on nearly every modern platform in existence, while Cold Fusion is only available on Windows, Solaris, Linux, MacOS, and AIX. Hence overall ColdFusion is good for the non-programmer while PHP I s not.

While ASP may be as easy as ColdFusion, the biggest drawback of ASP is that it is natively used only on the Microsoft Internet Information Server (IIS) platform thus limiting its availability to Win32 based servers besides being a slower and more cumbersome language than PHP, with less overall stability.

 

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Cold Fusion Website

by Guest Blogger on October 15, 2012

The advantages of ColdFusion platform in web designing

Adobe ColdFusion is a simple yet powerful programming language that can be used to create dynamic websites. Cold fusion is quite popular among web masters for its simplicity and its efficacy in making complex and interactive applications as those based in Javascript or PHP even without having a sound base in computer programming.

Simplicity is the virtue of ColdFusion

ColdFusion ensures simple coding unlike many other programming languages for web development applications like Java Script or PHP. ColdFusion uses very simple codes like HTML codes that even those who do not have any background in programming can excel in cold fusion once they pick up the unique tags.

The document formatting in ColdFusion is similar to HTML and you can even combine these two in a single file. If needed, you can turn a static HTML web page into a dynamic webpage using ColdFusion’s coding database tags.

Comprehensive Debugging

ColdFusion contains two tags that can be used for debugging your code at any time using a simple two-step process. The “cfdump” tag when placed in a ColdFusion document and run in a browser, will readily output the value of any variable on the page. This handy feature will help you to check whether the codes are functioning properly or not. The second tag, “cfabort,” works together with the first. While placing this tag in a document your server will stop processing it at that point and will resume the action only with your permission as you analyze the output. It would ensure the web master to check the steps in the page before proceeding further, thereby reducing the chances of errors or bugs unlike in other programming languages.

Speed

ColdFusion is a quick application programme, which is capable of asynchronous processing, which will greatly reduce the time needed for the server to read and to process the data in your ColdFusion documents. Typically a server takes up only command at  a time whereas in asynchronous processing, it can handle multiple commands at a time, by way of “multithreading.”

Hassle free Testing

ColdFusion need no compiling before using unlike many other application development languages. All you need to do is to simply upload the ColdFusion document to your server and test it in your Web browser using the corresponding URL. The simplicity of ColdFusion makes it possible for the webmasters to code a Web application and get it working on a server in just a few hours!

Benefits of ColdFusion over PHP / ASP

PHP can be used only on Unix/Linux related machines and you have to use different functions while accessing the database unlike in ColdFusion. Finding errors is time consuming and complex and it does not integrate with ODBC as in the case of ColdFusion.

ASP is only for Windows and lacks a good function list as Cold Fusion. Separate functionalities need to be installed for functions like upload, which could make the system slow or result in a system crash. The error tapping too is not as easy as in ColdFusion.

ColdFusion is swift and simple and it takes far less time to create an app than in PHP or ASP. Data base integration is simple so is error handling. There is no need for installing extended functionalities for uploading as in some other programming platforms like ASP. It can be connected to LDAP, COM components or Java Objects as well. It can easily generate Dynamic Flash content such as graphs. All the templates of the latest versions of ColdFusion can be compiled to Java Byte Code to be run like Java, which will add up to its popularity in the coming days.

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Cold Fusion 9

by Guest Blogger on October 15, 2012

ColdFusion, is known as the application server which runs on top of a Java Virtual Machine.  The interior has servlet containers like for instance the Tomcat, JRun, Glassfish and JBoss. It provides scripting language labeled as CFML, along with an array of services that is design to make web application development as manageable and quick as possible for the user.

ColdFusion has its inception around 1995 thus earning the brand as one of the initial web development platforms. Since then, there is no stopping for cold fusion as it has continued to develop and evolve into more advanced technology which is being utilized and taken advantage in a myriad of big companies around the world.

In the latter part of the year 2009, Adobe released Cold Fusion version 9 application server serving as a successor to Cold Fusion 8. It boasts of a wide array of interesting specifications. If you have not considered looking at ColdFusion before, or if you have not examined at it for quite some, try checking out this latest version of Cold fusion which technology aficionados have been raving about.

The predecessor of version 9 of Cold fusion is version 8. In version 8 of the Cold fusion,

One of the criticisms about ColdFusion has something to do with the tag-based CFML language. Athough this facilitates ease and convenience for people familiar with HTML to jump in, it also means, as a downside, that seasoned developers can become disappointed with the verbose tag syntax. Adobe took into account this complaint. And so with version 9 of cold fusion a user can now write code in either CFScript or CFML. CFScript is known as the ECMA-like scripting language, and it hastens things up especially concerning the coding of non-visual components like the ColdFusion Components or the CFCs.

Another radical departure in ColdFusion 9 from versions 8 is the integration of the Java Hibernate object-relational mapping or the ORM library. ColdFusion gets rid of the complexity of Hibernate and provides a simple API thus allowing the saving and loading of CFC’s to a relative database. This facilitates ease in the use of object-oriented development because you can develop an object model even without mulling over about the database at all, and just simply allow Hibernate to translate that model into a schema right then and there. By offering important hooks and nested transactions into the Hibernate event model, you can have a robust and fast domain models at your fingertips.

And finally, the new version contains the new cfspreadsheet tag which is not found in version 8. In version 8 one could spent a lot of hours building the so called “export to Excel” logic in applications ColdFusion 9 provides a breather because it includes a new cfspreadsheet label which literally ended this tedious chore. Along with the tag is a wide array of functions which permits practically any manipulation of a spreadsheet.

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Coldfusion Date

by Guest Blogger on October 12, 2012

Popular ColdFusion Date Functions

ColdFusion is a scripting language that has been utilized by developers since 1996 in creating dynamic websites. Dynamic websites can be altered depending on external factors like data, preferences of users, among others. Through ColdFusion, programmers can build websites that can have shopping carts, member’s areas, send e-mails, allow users to upload files, query a database, schedule tasks, and more. ColdFusion is tag based and can be utilized on the same page as Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). All ColdFusion tags begin with “cf.”
ColdFusion utilizes functions, or a self-contained block of code that undertakes a certain task and returns a value. Usually, a programmer working on a function needs to pass one or more arguments. An argument gives the functional additional information in order to process. Programmers can build their own functions, or utilize any of the 250 built-in functions in ColdFusion. These range from string-manipulation, mathematical, array and date functions, among others.

This article lists down several of the most popular ColdFusion date functions for ColdFusion 9.

CreateDateTime

The CreateDateTime function creates a date or time object and returns a date or time value. It falls under the date and time functions category, with function syntax of CreateDate (year, month, day).

Parameters for year range from 0 to 9999. Integers from 0-29 are automatically transformed to 2000 to 2020, while those from 30-99 are converted to 1930-1999. Users cannot specify dates before AD 100. For month, the parameters are integers in the range 1-12, with 1 converted to January and so on. Parameters for day range from 1-31, while for hours 0-23. For minutes and seconds, parameters are integer in the range of 0-59.

DateFormat

The DateFormat function is for creating US date formats. It returns a text string showing the date formatted. When there is no specified mask, the function returns the value in the dd-mmmm-yy format. Parameters for the date start from the 100 AD up to 9999 AD.

GetTimeZoneInfo

The GetTimeZoneInfo function acquires local time zone information relative to the Universal Time Coordinated (UTC), or mean solar time of the meridian of Greenwich, England. This is the same mean solar time utilized in calculating standard time around the world.

ColdFusion stores values of date and time as date-time objects. Thus real numbers are stored on a universal time line. It also converts an object to a time zone when formatting an object, and converts a date and time zone value when it parses a value.

TimeFormat

The TimeFormat function formats a time value utilizing US English time formatting conventions. It returns a custom-formatted time value and returns a time value if no mask is specified.

GetTickCount

The GetTickCount function returns the current value of a millisecond timer. It returns a string representation of a system time in millisecond. This function is specifically used for timing CFML code segments and other page processing elements.

ParseDateTime

The ParseDateTime function parses a date or time string based on US locale conventions. It returns a date or time object.

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