Application CFC and UDF Libraries
This seems easy enough. Create an onRequest method in your cfc with the following code:
<cffunction name="onRequest"> <cfargument name="targetPage" type="String" required=true/> <cfinclude template="lib.cfm" /> <cfinclude template="#arguments.targetPage#"> </cffunction>
However, there is one problem with this is that the ColdFusion documentation for the onRequest method in application.cfc states:
Do not implement the onRequest method in any Application.cfc file that affects .cfc files that implement web services, process Flash Remoting or event gateway requests; ColdFusion MX will not execute the requests if you implement this method.
This could present a problem for my app, though I could work around it potentially.
Option 2 - include in the onRequestStart method and copy into a scope
This just copies out functions that don't exist in the this scope. It worked nicely, but I am not completely comfortable running this on every request. I could easily stick it in the application scope, but I am not sure that is where I want my UDFs since the CF documentation states:
NOTE: I was informed this is incorrect info from 6.1 docs. It is neither true for versions 6.1 or 7. See comments below.
Option 3 - Utilize COAL
I haven't yet decided on a solution. Am I missing something obvious? Or maybe something not obvious but better?
If you simply do a cfinclude in your onRequestStart method, the functions will be copied into the variables scope of the component because onRequestStart does not have access to the variables scope of the calling page (or at least that is how I understand it). To work around this, I found a found to copy UDFs into another scope. However, this uses the caller scope and the isCustomFunction function, which aren't useful in this scenario. Therefore, I modifed the code to copy the UDFs into the request scope as follows: <cfinclude template="lib.cfm" /> <!--- copy UDFs into request scope ---> <cfloop collection="#variables#" item="key"> <cfif NOT structKeyExists(this,key) AND NOT isStruct(variables[key])> <cfset request[key] = variables[key]> </cfif> </cfloop> Application scope functions can cause processing bottlenecks because the server can only execute one copy of the function at a time. All requests that require the function must wait their turn.
The last option is to utilize the ColdFusion Open Application Library (COAL) developed by Ryan Guill to make my UDFs (and many other useful utilities) available as "services". This has other benefits as well and I like this option, but am concerned about adding another layer of complexity that I will have to train everyone on the team to understand.
Personally, creating an object out of your functions would be the best way to go, whether you use COAL or not. But COAL would be a good fit for this!
I hope to have a new version of COAL out soon too, so stay tuned to that if you are still considering it as an option.
Quick question due to what you wrote:
"Application scope functions can cause processing bottlenecks because the server can only execute one copy of the function at a time. All requests that require the function must wait their turn"
Does this apply to Application scope CFC's?? Any Ideas?
As for using UDF's on Application.cfc I have been having the same dilemas. Where to put them? I actually implemented your option 2. However, with the Textus Framework I don't worry about it anymore.
This is complete and utter nonsense. It was a mistake in the 6.1 docs that was corrected in the 7.0 docs:
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/coldfusion/7/htmldocs/00001016.htm
Note that it specifically says access to UDFs in application scope is multithreaded!
As for the onRequest() method, I'd be curious how you would expect to deal with your UDF library in existing code for Web Service / Flash Remoting / Event Gateway calls to CFCs? (since those are the only cases that are adversely affected by the presence of onRequest())
As for how to resolve this best, I am still only beginning to try Application.cfc and was trying to determine how this would affect my practice of including UDF libraries sitewide. There didn't seem to be any clear best practice in this regard and the fact that it couldn't be included in onRequestStart isn't obvious unless you read the documentation for that method. I am not clear on what you are saying would actually be the proper solution here? use onRequest?
My question still stands: how do you deal with a global UDF library today (i.e., using Application.cfm) for CFCs invoked via Web Services and Flash Remoting? Once you answer that, I'll give an opinion on how to handle that for Application.cfc.
As for onRequest() intercepting Web Service / Flash Remoting / Event Gateway CFC invocations, there are many ways around this, depending on what you are really trying to do. You can put the CFCs in a separate directory with its own Application.cfc (that doesn't have the onRequest() method). Or you can have the onRequestStart() method look at the targetPage argument and, if it ends with ".cfc", it can structDelete(variables,"onRequest") and structDelete(this,"onRequest") (I originated that workaround and a few people have blogged it). Again, it depends on what your onRequest() method does and how that plays with your Web Service / Flash Remoting / Event Gateway CFCs.
all i get is: Variable QUERYSTRINGDELETEVAR is undefined when i try one of the included udfs