Feature Articles

Data, Data Everywhere: How Do You Make it Work For You

An Introduction To Consuming And Deploying Web Services In ColdFusion

By Ben Nadel

Ben gives a comprehensive, highly informative treatment of web services that cuts through the confusion you may be having. A must for all beginners to web services.

Web Services and Complex Types

by Nathan Mische

Web services are supposed to be "black boxes" with which any web-enabled application can communicate, right? Although this is indeed a true statement, sometimes it isn't as straightforward as it may sound. Nathan takes the developer already familiar with basic web service creation and consumption to the next level: using ColdFusion to consume complex web services, complete with examples, WSDL dissection, and techniques. It will leave the reader with the ability to look at the WSDL for any complex web service and know exactly how to approach the consumption of it using ColdFusion.

Download the code for "Web Services and Complex Types"

Type Validation When Returning an Array of Components

by Michael Dinowitz

This short companion piece expands on an obscure but important point in Nathan Mische's article that needs further explanation.

Using Stored Procedures and Views

by Tom Manincor

Sometimes it's a good idea to leverage the power of the database server within an application. This article will explore the reasons for and against using stored procedures and views in a Coldfusion application. It will provide some practical examples and metrics showing these pros and cons as well.

Sizing up SQL’s System Tables

by C. Hatton Humphrey

Many programmers are unaware of the power – and the security issues – of the SQL database's System Tables. Hatton explains how to use these tables to make you master of your database, and how to keep them secure and away from unwanted intruders.

Building a Data mapper

by Peter Bell

Like an ORM framework, a data mapper is designed to simplify persistence and to decouple your object model from some of the limitations of your database schema. This article shows how Peter built a simple data mapper to solve common use cases. It isn’t a complete framework, but it shows how you can automate many common database tasks with a relatively small amount of time and code. The full working code is available for download.

Creating Excel Reports with cfExcelProxy

by François Lévesque

François has created a step-by-step tutorial to using the cfExcelProxy ??? to manipulate Excel files within ColdFusion.

Download the code for "Creating Excel Reports with cfExcelProxy"

Blaze DS

John Mason

What is BlazeDS and what isn't it? This article also explores how BlazeDS relates to LCDS and then demonstrates how to use BlazeDS with a ColdFusion Event Gateway in a simple, practical example.