Ben Nadel falls down the isValid() rabbit hole too

G'day:
This'll be very quick as I only have half an hour lunch today, so typing quickly.

Ben's just posted a blog article "IsValid() Accepts Emails With Leading And Trailing Whitespace In ColdFusion". This make me cry a little bit more inside, given we've already had all the drama with integers:

• According to ColdFusion "0,6" == "6,0". And both are integers to boot
• isValid(). Groan
• Can we please agree that Adobe is not the arbitor of what constitutes an integer?
• Fixing any bug has backwards compatibility concerns
• Of integers and indolence

Installing and Configuring Apache 2.2, Tomcat 6.0, and Open BlueDragon on Windows 2003 Server

G'day:
This is one of the articles I referred to yesterday in my "ColdFusion 9 on Windows 8" article. It was no longer online, and I was only able to find it by searching the Internet Archive. I thought it was a shame to have such useful information consigned to - basically - the rubbish heap, so I asked Matt Woodward if I could reproduce it. He's said I can, so here it is. Thanks to Matt for letting me re-post it here.


Note: the images are missing, and I can't guarantee all the links work. The content of the article is unchanged, however I have removed all the styling, and re-applied different mark-up in places. Just so the page doesn't break.

Underlying Java methods of CFML objects

G'day:
A week or so ago, I wrote an article 'Using "undocumented" methods'. This got mention on CFHour last week: "Show #206 - Mucho Happy Box", and one observation I think Scott made was that it'd be useful to know what methods were available, even if one might not necessarily want to use 'em (see the earlier article and its comments as to why one might not want to use 'em).

Anyway, ages ago I came across a handy Java class, ClassViewer, which enables one to inspect the underlying methods of CFML objects using Java reflection. I wrote an article about it "ClassViewer.java", and posted the source code. I hasten to add it is not my own work, but it is jolly handy code. I also knocked together a CFML version of it: "ClassViewer.cfc" (Gist). I've gone through a pumped a bunch of CFML objects through this, and saved the output on my CFMLDeveloper account. Here's links to 'em all:

Things I dislike: rules for the sake of rules

G'day:
Rules are great things to have if there's a point to them. However rules just for the sake of it are just dumb. Here's a dumb rule ColdFusion has.

CFML: Floating point bum-biting: Railo version (OpenBD just errored)

G'day
Just FYI (and because someone asked), these are the results of the code I used for last night's article on some floating point weirdness, when run on Railo. Code:

<cfoutput>
<cfif structKeyExists(server, "railo")>
    server.railo.version: #server.railo.version#<br>
<cfelse>
    server.coldFusion.productVersion: #server.coldFusion.productVersion#<br>
</cfif>
<hr>

<cfset theValue = 1.15>
<cfset theMultiplier = 100>
<cfset theDivisor = 5>
<cfset theProduct = theValue * theMultiplier>


Default<br>
#theProduct# % #theDivisor# = #theProduct % theDivisor#<br>
#theProduct# / #theDivisor# = #theProduct / theDivisor#<br>
#theProduct# \ #theDivisor# = #theProduct \ theDivisor#<br>
<hr>

Precision<br>
<cfset thePreciseProduct = precisionEvaluate(theValue * theMultiplier)>
#thePreciseProduct# % #theDivisor# = #thePreciseProduct % theDivisor#<br>
#thePreciseProduct# / #theDivisor# = #thePreciseProduct / theDivisor#<br>
#thePreciseProduct# \ #theDivisor# = #thePreciseProduct \ theDivisor#<br>
<hr>
</cfoutput>

OpenBD's attitude disappoints me sometimes

G'day:
This is not the article I was thinking of writing today. But this is just too daft not to repeat.

The other day there was some discussion on the Railo Google group about some weirdness with JSON validation, which is worth a quick read. In summary, it seemed to the original poster that there was some false positives coming through. Being a literalist I observed that none of the examples were actually JSON according to JSON's own spec, as well as the RFC. Micha and I agreed to disagree - kinda... I'm sure Micha doesn't care about my opinion ;-) - as to whether Railo should stick to the spec at the expense of breaking existing code. He suggested the more moderate route.

What's up with OpenBD?

G'day
This is just a quick one.

I found myself - yet again - typing into one of my articles (an update to yesterday's one which discussed CFML's date datatypes) something to this effect "but the code didn't work on OpenBD, so I didn't bother testing it".

Constructing a query with data in one fell swoop

G'day:
A coupla quick ones today.

An unglamorous but handy bit of functionality was slipped into ColdFusion 10. When using queryNew() to create a recordset, one can now as the data for it in the same statement. There's two formats for this:

No I'm NOT the only person in the UK using CF10!

G'day:
OK so that title seems like I'm stating the obvious, but it's a reaction to my earlier article which questioned whether I was. I was questioning this because Rakshith from Adobe had suggested I was, as far as he knew. I didn't believe him, so I decided to try to find out (by running a survey).

Firstly: thanks to everyone who responded.  I got 56 responses which is quite good for the surveys I run.

Secondly: yes, I can confirm that there are people in the UK other than myself using CF10.  Phew.

How 4 can equal 3 (or possibly 5) in ColdFusion

G'day:
This was the article I was meaning to write today, but I got sidetracked with the IDE survey thing (I've got 30 replies so far: thanks!), and this took a while longer to nut out than I expected.  Plus work gets in the way sometimes (it's lunch time now... my tech leads reads this stuff, so I figure I had better mention that ;-).

OK, so thanks to my new CF bugs RSS feed I now know all about the new CF bugs that get raised as they happen.  This has been helpful for me twice already (in the space of 48h), so I'm pleased with that.

Today I got notified of 3341284 being raised, which is very similar - but not the same, as it turns out - as a bug we're experiencing in CF9.  So it got my focus.

The short version is that when one uses the argumentCollection to pass arguments around, it can screw up your arguments scope.  So this is quite serious.  This problem first cropped up in CF9 (not CF10 as per the bug report), and persists in CF10.  It's fine in CF8.  And in Railo.  And in OpenBD.

I'm the only person in the UK using ColdFusion 10???

G'day:
Sorry for the attention-grabbing headline, but it's not a complete work of speculative fiction (although I kinda hope it is).

valueList(): bouquet for OpenBD... play catch-up, ColdFusion & Railo

G'day:
One of the most curious things about CFML is the valueList() function.  As far as I know, it is the only function in all of CFML for which the argument must be of datatype "Query Column" (please let me know if there are any other examples?).   The Query Column (coldfusion.sql.QueryColumn in CF,  com.naryx.tagfusion.cfm.engine.cfQueryColumnData in OpenBD, and I can't coerce Railo into considering query["column"] a column like I can in CF and OpenBD, so I can't tell you what Railo the Railo class is... Railo just says it's a string), is - unfortunately - not a very well-realised data type in CFML.

Improving CFML's documentation

G'day
I started rambling on in response to a thread on the Railo newsgroup, but after I'd typed about 500 words I thought it was getting a bit long for a forum response, plus it's relevant to more than just Railo anyhow, so I'd centralise it here, and put a summary on the forum and a link back to here.

The gist of the bit of the discussion I was interested in is this bit:

Alan Holden said:

On the documentation front... and this transcends Railo a bit:

I wish there was a "CFML Rosetta Stone". It would be something like CFDocs, but with a matrix architecture so you could quickly x-reference a tag or function across ACF, Railo and OpenBD (& even desktop, cloud, Jakarta, Tomcat versions, etc). This would help us develop apps that worked across the spectrum, help us solve those "it worked here, why not here?" bugs, and thereby help to advance CFML in general - to the benefit of all.

Unfortunately, this will probably remain a wish for some time... for it would probably need to be housed and managed separately, and would take a little chunk of time (and money) to develop and maintain.

Arrays in CFML (part 4)

G'day:
As the title suggests, this is part four of a series of articles I've written about arrays in CFML. So far I've covered what an array is and how to create them, plus two articles covering all the functions in CFML which specifically work with arrays.

• Arrays in CFML (part 1)
• Arrays in CFML (part 2)
• Arrays in CFML (part 3)

As well as these functions that are specifically implemented to maintain & manipulate arrays, there are a bunch of other functions relating to other data types that use arrays. I'm going to cover those in this article. I'll break them down by the data-type they relate to.  I'm not going to do indepth coverage of how the functions work, because I'll eventually cover them when I give the various other data types the same treatment I'm giving arrays here.  EG: I'll discuss structFindKey() thoroughly when I do an exploration into "Structs in ColdFusion" (OK, so you've been fore-warned... there's more of this to come! ;-).  I'm just gonna dwell on the array`ed-ness of the relevant functionality.

Arrays in CFML (part 3)

G'day:
This article finishes up the coverage of array functions in CFML (there's more to discuss than just the functions: I'll get to that stuff in yet another article). Most of the array functions were covered in an earlier article, and I'm just finishing of the rest of them here. The functions here haven't been put in a separate article for a good reason: it's just that I'm daft and forgot to put then in the earlier article that should have included them. I dunno how I missed them of the list initially, as I based my "todo list" on the list of functions on the "Array Functions" page from the CF docs. Like I said: I'm just daft. Anyway... here they are.

Arrays in CFML (part 2)

G'day:
In this article, which is part two in an ongoing series, I'll discuss the various functions CFML ships with for working with arrays. The first part described what an array is, and how to create them.

The online docs cover each of these functions too, but the coverage is pretty superficial. They cover all the syntax options and give a code example, but they don't go beyond that. Having been around the block a few times (and thus... err... ending up back where I started.. hmmmmm...), I've picked up the odd but of insight, and have explored some of the idiosyncrasies of CFML that isn't covered in the docs. I shall try to discuss why one might want to use a given function, rather than just cataloguing that it exists (which is all the official docs seem to set out to do, at times).

The docs are good for something though: they do act as a good lookup of what's available, so go have a look at then after yer done here.

Anyway, enough waffle...

Complex data-types in CF, and how they're not copied by reference

G'day
I've got part 2 of the array discussion underway, but I'm just going to digress slightly to write some notes up about how CFML deals with assigning and passing-around complex objects.

Again there's probably nothing new here for most bods out there, but hopefully it'll be useful to some people.

OK, so first up, there are a number of data types in CFML:

• string (including lists)
• date
• boolean
• numeric (including both integer and floating point)
• array
• struct
• query
• XML
• objects (specifically native CFML ones, ie: component instances)
• [others]

Included in "[others]" are stuff like file handles, images, spreadsheets, FTP connections, and stuff like that... there's a whole bunch of them, and I won't try to list all of them because I'll forget something, which'll mean someone will need to add a comment to point this out. So I'm just saving us all some time.

Arrays in CFML (part 1)

G'day:
I'm going to write up my understanding of how arrays work in CFML. This is a mundane topic in any programming language, but it's also absolutely critical, and having a good handle on how they work is very important. I will say up front that if you're a seasoned CFML developer that there probably won't be anything in here you don't already know.

Two timelines: Railo vs ColdFusion

G'day
This is just a quick bouquet (for Railo) and brickbat (for ColdFusion).

Here's the timeline of a bug that was found in Railo:

Time	Elapsed Time	Milestone
8 Aug 2012 15:10	-	Potential bug in int() function reported on the mailing list
8 Aug 2012 15:50	40min	Bug confirmed by community member
8 Aug 2012 21:23	6hrs	Probable cause of bug suggested by community member
9 Aug 2012 08:03	17hrs	Ticket raised
9 Aug 2012 09:11	18hrs	Explanation of issue offered by Railo dev team member
9 Aug 2012 10:39	19hrs	Bug fixed ready for next release
9 Aug 2012 10:39	19hrs	Workaround offered by Railo dev team member

Note that this is a fairly trivial issue, and the workaround is fine.  But it's now fixed, and will be released shortly.

Comparing installations: CF10, Railo and OpenBD

G'day
I'm doing this second post today to make up for the missed one y/day.  Not that I imagine anyone's day was ruined by not having a new article to read on this blog, but anyway, here you go.

I've just run through the installation processes for ColdFusion 10 (Enterprise), Railo 3.3.4.003 (using the .exe installer), Railo 4.0.0.013 (the Jetty version), and OpenBD 2.0.2 (the Jetty version).

It was an "interesting" process.