ColdFusion-Talk Roundup#2
by Kay Smoljak
Noteworthy threads from the famous ColdFusion-Talk (CF-Talk) List on House of Fusion for the Week of April 3 - April 10, 2008
Database Schema Comparison and Sync Tools for MS SQL Server (April 3, 2008)
Thread: Database schema compare/sync tools for MSSQL
Gerald Guido asked for recommendations on tools to compare and sync database schemas for multiple SQL Server 2005 databases. Michael Dawson suggested Embarcadero's ER/Studio, and Adrian Lynch mentioned Red Gate tools, which was then backed up with rave reviews from another four listers.
Ordering Numeric Query Columns Alphabetically (April 3, 2008)
Thread: Order By QuestionPaul Ihrig wanted to know how to order a column of numbers retrieved from a database alphabetically (1, 101, 2, 201 etc), not numerically (1, 2, 101, 201 etc). A number of different potential solutions to the problem were posted:
- Gerald Guido posted some ColdFusion code to turn the column values into a list and sort them alphabetically
- Ian Skinner suggested using a CAST statement in the SQL to tell the database engine to treat the numbers as characters; Andy Matthews provided SQL code, as did Kris Jones and Jenny Gavin-Wear
- Bobby Hartsfield suggested changing the datatype of the field, or creating an extra text column that gets updated with identical data
Advanced pagination (April 10, 2008)
Thread: Tutorial on creating this paginationRick Faircloth was looking for a tutorial on how to setup advanced record pagination - with links to the first and last pages, the current page and surrounding pages as well as basic next and previous page links. No one was able to point him towards a tutorial, but Nathan Strutz did one better – linked to his own pagination CFC project, an open source component that does everything Rick required plus and more.
Open source ColdFusion shopping cart systems (April 10, 2008)
Thread: Open Source ColdFusion Shopping CartsDave Phillips asked about off-the-shelf shopping cart systems written in ColdFusion, with source available. Several listers recommended CFWebStore, and Cartweaver was also mentioned.
Application.cfm and Application.cfc (April 10, 2008)
Thread: Migrating to Application cfcJeff Price had a question about how to migrate existing applications using multiple Application.cfm files to Application.cfc – his main concern being that a mixture of the two types of files would cause havoc. Barney Boisvert was able to answer that as long as the application names were the same, there would be no problem – and in a later post, expanded some more on the strengths and weaknesses of both approaches to application variable management.
Kay is an all-round web developer who has been developing with ColdFusion since 2000. She runs Clever Starfish with her partner Dave and several very demanding cats, and sits on the committee of the Australian Web Industry Association. She is a regular writer for Fusion Authority and the Fusion Authority Quarterly Update, and a ColdFusion blogger on Sitepoint.com.