- ColdFusion

CSS Parsing ColdFusion Function

Fri, 16 Apr 2010 17:06:00 --0100

Here's a function I knocked up to retrieve a specified CSS property from within a specified CSS Selector:



	
	
	
	

		
		var local = structnew();
		
		local.MatchingSelectors = REMatch("[^}]*#arguments.Selector#[^{]*{[^}]*#arguments.Property#[\s]*:[\s]*([^;}]*[^}]*})",arguments.css);
		if (arraylen(local.MatchingSelectors))
		{
			local.relevantSelector = trim(local.MatchingSelectors[arraylen(local.MatchingSelectors)]);
			local.FindValue = refind("{[^}]*#arguments.Property#[\s]*:[\s]*([^;}]*)",local.relevantSelector, 1, true);
			local.pos = local.FindValue.pos[2];
			local.len = local.FindValue.len[2];
			local.cssValue = trim(mid(local.relevantSelector,local.pos,local.len));
		}
		else
		{
			local.cssValue = arguments.DefaultValue;
		}

		return local.cssValue;

This function will attempt to return the specified property as defined in the last CSS definition which contains the specified selector. This does mean that it will potentially return false matches against more specific selectors - e.g. searching for font-size property within td.gridDataCell would return the value for the button (8px), even though more accurately the previous less specific value (10px) should have been returned.


td.gridDataCell {font-size:10px;}
td.gridDataCell button {font-size:8px;}

I have a particular use case for this functionality for parsing CSS used to control formatting of dynamically generated HTML emails, and convert it to HTML which is more compatible with Outlook 2007 (i.e. HTML Properties rather than CSS :-/) where I already know that no complex cascading rules have been defined - but if need be additional functionality could be added to parse the selectors within local.MatchingSelectors, and remove any matches which only match partially.

How to call a Web Service from CF7 using Client Certificate based ("Bilateral") authentication (Win)

Tue, 16 Feb 2010 22:42:00 --0100

If you have to call a web service from ColdFusion 7 - and the destination web service enforces bilateral SSL authentication (i.e. the caller has to supply a client certificate to prove who they are, as well as the destination supplying a server certificate to prove who it is...) - then the options, in descending order of preference are:

Check / ask really nicely / beg / etc. to see if there is a way of calling the web service without passing a client SSL certificate
Use CF8 (or later) - I believe that you will still need to do the SOAP generation by hand, as cfobject / cfinvoke do not appear to allow a client certificate to be set - but you can use cfhttp and specify the clientcert and clientcertpassword attributes - which avoids having to use the WinHttp.WinHttpRequest COM object as shown below.
Use the WinHttp.WinHttpRequest COM object as shown below...

ColdFusion (when running on windows) allows (and has allowed for several versions) COM objects to be called from within CF code, using the CFOBJECT tag or CreateObject() function.

Built into the following versions of windows, is the WinHTTP 5.1 COM object:

WinHTTP 5.1 is available only with Windows Server 2003, Windows XP with Service Pack 1 (SP1), and Windows 2000 Professional with Service Pack 3 (SP3). (I suspect that it may also be available in Windows 2008)

This provides similar functionality to CFHTTP - but at a lower level. In particular it allows a client certificate to be specified, using the SetClientCetificate function.

This is not as simple as it seems - where as in CF8 using CFHTTP you just have to specify the physical location of the client certificate file - the WinHttp object requires that the client certificate is first imported into a certificate store - and then the reference to the certificate provided to the SetClientCetificate function:

ClientCertificate [in]

Specifies the location, certificate store, and subject of a client certificate

To cut a very long (well around 5 hours) story short, this is how I finally got it to work:

[More]

ColdFusion Job opportunity in Manchester, UK

Sat, 25 Jul 2009 10:29:00 --0100

A new job opportunity for a ColdFusion developer has just become available in Manchester, UK. This is at the company that I worked at for 5 years (Gencia Media) - great bunch of people to work with, really friendly. Click here for job details / contact details.

Aggregate Bug? with ColdFusion (8.0.1) Query of Queries

Mon, 21 Jul 2008 11:18:00 --0100

I've been having the following issue with CF8 Query of Queries on ColdFusion 8.0.2:

Iniital query resultset:

attraction_latitude	attraction_longitude
51.4808	-0.155075
51.564617	-0.092513
51.558144	-0.316379

[More]

CFAjaxProxy - don't add the .CFC file extension...

Wed, 09 Jul 2008 01:12:00 --0100

I've been getting the following CF error when attempting to use the CFAjaxProxy tag:

The specified CFC path.to.cfcname.cfc cannot be found

The specified CFC definitely existed, and all the mappings had been set up correctly. I was calling it with the following code:

I was tearing my hair out for about an hour, before I realised think CF not AJAX - the path to be supplied is in exactly the same format as all CFC references - i.e. excluding the .CFC file extension. I'm sure this is completely obvious to most people (although at least one guy (thanks Andy) mentioned having done the same thing even today) - but its the obvious ones that seem to catch me out!!!

Weird issue trying to start a CF8 instance

Mon, 07 Jul 2008 00:33:00 --0100

Just had the following issue when trying to start a CF8 instance. Within the windows services control panel, I clicked start for all of the instances (8) - and they all started except 1. This was following some fairly in depth reconfiguring of the instances - involving changes to multiple configuration files, the registry, and (perhaps most tellingly) mapping each instance to use its own configuration file by un-registering the windows service, and then re-registering the service using the new config file. During this process, jrunsvc will stop the service if it is currently running. When I checked within the JRun {instance name}-out.log file within the instance which would not start, I saw the following error:


error JRun Naming Service unable to start on port 2914
java.net.BindException: Port in use by another service or process: 2914

[More]

64 bit CF8 Compatability issue (Completely irrelevant to most people)

Fri, 04 Jul 2008 17:36:00 --0100

There doesn't appear to be a 64bit driver for MS Access data sources. I know - no-one in there right mind would use access for driving a website - but we still host a couple (literally) of sites which were created at least 6 years ago and have barely been changed since... Solution: Import said databases into SQL Server...

SMTP Event Gateway???

Mon, 30 Jun 2008 22:49:00 --0100

Does anyone know of an SMTP event gateway for ColdFusion> What I'm looking for, is a way of implementing helpdesk type functionality, whereby any emails to a certain domain are handled by ColdFusion according to a set of rules (e.g. create new issue - add comment to an exiting issue etc.) It struck me that it should be relatively straightforward to handle incoming SMTP transmissions using a ColdFusion Event Gateway (seeing as SMTP is a relatively simple text based prtocol...) - and I wondered if anyone had already done it - and if not - why not? (I'm presuming I must have overlooked something that would make it more complicated than I anticipate...)

ColdFusion 8.01 on Windows - should I go 64 bit?

Sun, 15 Jun 2008 13:03:49 --0100

I'm in the process of specifying a new web server, which will be running ColdFusion 8.01 Enterprise (as well as IIS etc.).

The server will be running ~6 active instances of ColdFusion - and will initially be configured with 4GB RAM - with the option of upgrading in the future as required.

We will be using Windows 2003 Enterprise as the operating system.

What will the benefits and downsides be of going for the x64 OS compared with the x32 OS, taking the following into consideration:

The system will only be used as web application server
The system will initially be set up with 4GB RAM - and will never have more than 8GB.
The high number of instances of CF mean that if we did set the JVM Heap size over the ~1200 MB x32 limit, then we'd run a distinct possibility of running out of memory. (The reason for having so many instances of CF is to enable separation of CF Mail queues - 2 of the instances don't get any front end traffic at all, and are just responsible for sending out large batches of email)

Any advice would be appreciated...

A big thankyou to all those involved in Scotch on the Rocks

Sat, 07 Jun 2008 00:26:00 --0100

Got back home from Scotch on the Rocks - just wanted to publicly thank all those involved with Scotch on the Rocks. In particular I want to thank Andy Allan and his wife Leanne for the huge amount of time and resource they have given to make this conference the best ever European ColdFusion conference, together with Kev, Stephen and others. I also want to thank all the speakers - All the presentations I attended were interesting - and some were particularly relevant to where I am now as a developer. The networking was great - it was particularly good to be able to chat with some of the guys who are leaders within the community - I think this can be even more valuable in many occasions than the sessions - as well as the interaction with Adobe staff. Thanks Everyone.

How to change ColdFusion / JRun logging location

Tue, 13 May 2008 15:40:00 --0100

ColdFusion by default stores log files in 2 locations, dependant on the type: [More]

Unable to persist CFC to App scope if invoked by Webservice call (With workaround)

Tue, 11 Dec 2007 11:32:00 --0100

I have come across the following issue when attempting to persist a CFC to the Coldfusion Application scope, when the the CFC method had been invoked remotely. [More]

Beware Coldfusion / mapping

Fri, 19 Oct 2007 00:24:00 --0100

Be careful when setting up a root ColdFusion mapping, where the ColdFusion root and the web server root are not the same location. On our standard Development machines, we are running IIS on Windows XP, and have been developing against 3 versions of ColdFusion. We set up 3 IIS virtual directories (/cf5, /cf6, /cf7) each pointing to a subdirectory of our sites folder (c:\sites\cf5, c:\sites\cf6, c:\sites\cf7 etc.) - with the corresponding version of CF handling each virtual folder. Within each version of CF, we set up a root mapping - e.g. for CF7: / = c:\sites\cf7, in order to allow the CF Mapping path to be consistent between development machines and production servers. This works fine for most occasions - the IIS virtual directory normally has nothing to do with the CF Mapping - however there are a couple of exceptions:

Using the Application.cfc OnRequest Method: (CF will set arguments.targetpage to equal the IIS path)
When attempting to invoke a CFC as a webservice (error: Could not resolve CFC datatype)

Both of these issues can be resolved by setting up a CF mapping to match the web server virtual directory mapping (e.g. /CF7 = c:\sites\cf7)

Flex integration broken in CFMX 7.02 on Ubuntu (maybe - for most people)

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:40:00 --0100

I struggled with this over most of the weekend - and eventually came to the conclusion that flex / CF integration does not work using CFMX 7.02 on Ubuntu. This appears to be a known issue (at least for Red Hat) - logged here Any flex requests to CFC's are met with flex/messaging/io/amf/UnknownTypeException. [More]

ColdFusion 7.02 + Apache 2.2 installed on Ubuntu 7.04 on VMware Player

Mon, 27 Aug 2007 02:26:00 --0100

Its definately harder than windows - but I have managed to get ColdFusion 7.02 Server running on Apache, on Ubuntu 7.04 (Feisty Fawn). My previous experience with Linux is very limited to say the least - and most of the issues I ran into were due to misunderstandings on my part about how linux works... Main issues i ran into:

Ubuntu does not have a root account (not strictly true - but when I though it was asking me for a root password - it was actually asking for my password...)
Could not execute ColdFusion installer after I had downloaded it (not marked as executeable - chmod +x)
I really don't understand linux permissions - I want to be able to create and edit docs in /usr/local/apache2/htdocs/ without having to sudo (I'm sure this one will seem more logical when its not 3am!
Had an issue with the connector for apache - the one that is distributed with CF is not compatible with Apache 2.2 (there is a hotfix downloadable from adobe for this, which worked)

All in all, I don't think 4 hours was too bad, baring in mind my inexperience with linux etc. I have to say, I'm very impressed with VMware player - about 100 billion times faster than MS Virtual PC! A big thankyou goes to Dave Shuck for his excellent post on Installing CFMX7 & Apache2.2.2 on Ubuntu - Without this I think I would have been totally lost... I'll post more when its not 3am - and I've had more chance to get everything setup how I want. (Basically I'm trying to create an environment that I can dev in (and potentially move to other machines) when I'm not using my primary development machine - I have a lightweight laptop that I normally use when I'm not in the office - but I often want to quickly play with something in CF. I didn't want to break my existing windows installation on this machine by installing a load of server / development software - so I thought I'd build a virtual machine - using ubuntu rather than windows to avoid licensing (and hopefully performance) issues!)