ColdFusion developers are familiar with the debug output that can be appended to processed pages. But many don't know that CF4.5 can also show the time to process the page broken down by all the individual pages that were used to compose the final page. This feature is called "Detail View" and it...
ColdFusion caches p-code versions of your CFM files to improve performance. Ideally, the p-code cache should be big enough to contain every single CFM file. While there is no guaranteed formula that you can use to determine what the exact size should be, a good rule of thumb is to allow at least...
ColdFusion 4 introduced a new administrative option called "Enforce Strict Attribute Validation". When enabled ColdFusion can process requests a bit quicker, but in doing so is much stricter in initial attribute validation. Enabling this option on existing servers (with older apps) is risky, you...
Locking is important, and must be used in conjunction with shared code or data. But don't overlock your code - long blocks of unnecessarily locked code will negatively impact application performance. Use locking where needed, but don't overuse it. (Applies to: ColdFusion 4 (or later))
"Nesting" refers to the use of tags within tags - for example, statements within statements, or statements within statements. There are valid reasons to nest your code, but avoid nesting too deeply. Nesting impacts application performance - but worse, it also tends to make your code less...
Ask many developers why native database drivers should be used (instead of ODBC drivers) and you'll almost always be told that it is to improve performance. But the truth is, there is very little performance gain (if any) when using native database drivers, so if that is the reason you are...
is used to call stored-procedures. can be used to call stored procedures too. So which should you use? is simpler to use, but it does not support the use of multiple result sets, return codes, or output parameters. is a little trickier to use, but supports all of these. Plus, queries can be cached,...
Form field names, variable names, anything that contains data that corresponds to database columns should be named exactly the same as the columns they represent. This will simplify your coding and debugging dramatically. (Applies to: ColdFusion All)
lets you display a specific page if an error occurs, but that is usually not enough. To take programmatic action when an error occurs (for example, notifying yourself via e-mail, or attempting to fix the problem) you should use try-catch handling using the and tags. (Applies to: ColdFusion 4 (or...
Need to create a link to a local file in Studio? Just find that file in the Resource Tab and drag it into your code - a complete will be generated, and the page will automatically be the link text. Of course, this will only work if you have already saved the file you are working on (if not Studio...