trying to work up the nerve to do it tomorrow (2010)... who's with me?!

Tip: cfsavecontent and cfinclude within script based CFCs

Ok, so I know that I've said (many times) that including layout in a CFC is generally a bad idea. I still think it is. But like most rules there are always exceptions. Normally this wouldn't be a big deal, but HTML and JavaScript within a script based component is - well - it's ugly. Here is an example:

1  case "textbox": {
2      return s & '<input type="text" name="#arguments.name#" value="#currentValue#">';
3  }

This simple example works, but more complex HTML gets messier. I could have switched the component over to tags. It's not like that would be the end of the world! But then I remember - you can use savecontent within script based cfcs. So instead of the inline HTML you see above, I now use:

1  case "event date": {
2      savecontent variable="s" {
3          include "render/eventdate.cfm";
4      }
5      return s;
6  }

Woot. I wish I had remembered this when I began the project, but I'm guessing I'll be getting used to ColdFusion 9 syntax until right around the release of ColdFusion 10.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 22, 2009 at 9:29 PM. It was filed in the following categories: ColdFusion. It has been viewed 901 times and has 6 comments.

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• Comment 1 written by Daniel Budde on 23 December 2009, at 8:09 AM

  

  Although, I am not on CF9 yet, I have ran into this in the past when I wanted to e-mail template based reports from within my CFC. The reports already existed as HTML templates within the application, so the easy fix was to use <cfsavecontent> with a <cfinclude>.

  It always makes me feel a little bad to have to break encapsulation, but as you say, there are those exceptions to the rule. I always just comment them well and since they are few and far between, they have just never caused any trouble.

• Comment 2 written by Tony Nelson on 23 December 2009, at 9:34 AM

  

  You'll want to be careful when using .cfm mixins inside singleton components to make sure any variables declared within the mixin are thread-safe.

• Comment 3 written by Raymond Camden on 23 December 2009, at 9:54 AM

  

  Agreed. I'm forcing myself to use local.x for all variables. I normally do NOT like local.foo, I just var scope, but for this component I'm using it as a way to ensure I'm always local.

• Comment 4 written by Daniel Budde on 23 December 2009, at 9:59 AM

  

  I do the same as well. All my variables used within the template are always located under (LOCAL.templateInfo).

• Comment 5 written by Tony Nelson on 23 December 2009, at 10:31 AM

  

  If you don't want to have to use local.x everywhere, you could create a small Include.cfc proxy for including templates.

  case "event date": {
           return new Include("render/eventdate.cfm",arguments);
  }

  Include.cfc:
  component {
     public string function init(template, params) {      
        structDelete(variables, "init");
        structDelete(variables, "this");
        structAppend(variables, arguments.params);      
        savecontent variable="local.html" {
           include arguments.template;
        }
        return local.html;
     }
  }

  Now any variables declared inside render/eventdate.cfm won't bleed into your component.

• Comment 6 written by Raymond Camden on 23 December 2009, at 10:32 AM

  

  That's slick as crap. Thanks Tony.

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read the comments on Ray's blog, too. Cool code there, too.

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