Cfcfhart within cfthread possible? how to get output? - coldfusion

I'm trying to improve the execution time of one of my reports which uses cfcharts to print graphs. The code itself is a loop of entities and for each entity I create a chart (it's a comparison report).
By doing this inline it takes almost a minute or more to complete due to the complexity of the report so I'm trying to use cfthread for this case but I'm not sure if it's possible.
Here's the code:
<body>
<cfloop array="#uuids#" index="uuid" >
<cfthread action="run" name="t#threadCount#" output="to#threadCount#">
...
<cfchart >
...
</cfchart>
</cfthread>
...
</cfloop>
</body>
As expected cfchart will not be "printed" inside cfthread though apparently it's being executed. How can I get the output of cfthread? One possible solution would be creating an image from cfchart and just use the image to build a document at later time when all threads finished but I was wondering if there's any way of getting the cfchart output from cfthread.

Try putting a custom tag around the cfchart call and capturing generatedcontent into a variable - then access it using the threads scope. I'm not positive this will work (depending on your output format).

I have not tested this, it's just an idea, but you could try putting cfchart inside of a cfsavecontent block.

I was able to use cfsavecontent to save and then generate cfcharts with quotes.
Just make sure whatever queries / data variables used are saved inside the cfsavecontent block (I was having trouble with this part; scoping gets a little wonky if you aren't careful)
<body>
<cfloop array="#uuids#" index="uuid" >
<cfthread action="run" name="t#threadCount#" output="to#threadCount#">
<cfsavecontent variable="thisContent">
<cfquery name="thisQuery" datasource="dsource">
...
</cfquery>
<cfchart >
...
</cfchart>
</cfsavecontent>
</cfthread>
...
</cfloop>
<cfloop array="#uuids#" index="uuid" >
<cfthread action="join" name="t#threadCount#"/>
#thisContent#
</cfloop>
</body>
My issue that I had with this was the dynamic variable naming / calling. I'm sure that's a very easy fix, but if I called each content by the name I knew would be created, it was displayed--though this defeats the purpose of using dynamic variables. But that's another battle entirely! The answer is yes, you can use cfsavecontent with cfcharts inside a cfthread.

Related

Counting the number of hits in a life cycle method using ColdFusion

I am needing to display some analytics regarding how many times a "OnRequestStart" function is called, or rather the number of hits per hour on our internal API that’s contained in a .cfc file. Preferably through the life cycle method; however the counter must continue outside of the life cycle. I know this can be done easily in other languages, but I am new to ColdFusion and have been trying to read through the documentation to see if there is some form of life cycle method I can use in order to achieve this. If there are any sort of documentation I am missing (I've tried learn cf in a week, cfdocs, adobe documentation), but there's not really much out there. This probably isn’t 100% clear, but if there is any clarification needed I’ll be happy to help.
Edit: I figured it would be best to set an application variable in onApplicationStart and incrementally add 1 to the counter variable within the onRequest start. Here is my example code:
Application.cfc:
<CFFUNCTION NAME="OnApplicationStart" ACCESS="PUBLIC" RETURNTYPE="BOOLEAN">
<cfset Application.timer EQ 0/>
<cfset Application.counter EQ 0/>
</CFFUNCTION>
somepage.cfm
<tr>
<cfoutput> #Application.counter#</cfoutput>
</tr>
I thought this would work, but I get an error saying Element COUNTER is undefined in APPLICATION. Is there something I am missing? I tried to restart the CF server service and web server, but no luck.
Thank you everyone for your help
Write it to the application scope, in onRequestStart(), include the following code:
lock scope="application" type="exclusive" timeout=1 throwontimeout=false {
if (!application.keyExists("reqCount") {
application.reqCount= 0;
}
application.reqCount++;
}
Then you can use it whereever you need it.
Turns out, the simplest way to do this is to simply create a variable either outside of the lifecycle or within onApplicationStart then increment the variable with each onRequestStart. You can then do whatever is needed after that. One thing I did stupidly was put <cfset Application.timer EQ 0/> <cfset Application.counter EQ 0/> after a <cfreturn> tag. Lesson learned, don't assume anything, research everything haha.
Thank you everyone

Export to Excel - Hidden Field not generating results

I've a simple CFC file that contains the different functions for different queries & a separate function that displays the reports dynamically based on the queries.
All the queries work except one which returns approx. 50k rows. Its just a blank screen & I get no error. When I dump the query results, they do get dumped on the screen but while displaying it in a tabular report it gives nothing.
I've a another CFM file that returns 100k rows & works fine.
Below is CFC code that is not working.
<cfcomponent>
<cfparam name="qry1" default="">
<cffunction name="showqry1" access="remote">
<cfquery name="qry1" dataSource="myds" cachedwithin="#CreateTimeSpan(0, 2, 0, 0)#">
<!--- myquery --->
</cfquery>
<cfset Display()>
</cffunction>
<cffunction name="showqry2" access="remote">
<cfquery name="qry1" dataSource="myds" cachedwithin="#CreateTimeSpan(0, 2, 0, 0)#">
<!--- myquery --->
</cfquery>
<cfset Display()>
</cffunction>
<cffunction name="Display" access="private">
<cfdump var="#rptQry#" top="20">
<cfsavecontent variable="myrpt">
<table>
<!--- make a tabular report here using cfloop over the query--->
</table>
</cfsavecontent>
<cfform action="test.cfm" method="post" name="ExcelData">
<cfoutput>#myrpt#</cfoutput>
<cfinput type="hidden" name="excel_data" value="#myrpt#"/><!---This is giving the error. --->
<cfinput type="submit" name="test" value="Export" />
</cfform>
</cffunction>
</cfcomponent>
Any idea why CFM works fine but CFC doesn't? I need my CFC to work & dont want it to convert it to CFM...
UPDATE:
I've added a comment("This is giving the error") in the above code that is cause of the error. Irrespective of CFC/CFM this doesn't work.
I use the hidden field to pass data to another file which exports data to excel. Any alternate suggestions??
Any help is highly appreciated.
Thanks
You still need to read that doc I put in the comment about how to ask questions clearly.
However you are putting your recordset into a variable qry1, but trying to dump a variable rptQry. But that would just error, unless there's some code you're not showing us that populates rptQry.
Also, from a coding practice POV, you shouldn't really be outputting stuff in your functions: that's best done in a CFM page. Get your data with a CFC method; display it with a CFM.
I also recommend you read up on how to do OO with CFML (or in general). Perhaps get Matt Gifford's book "Object-Oriented Programming in ColdFusion"
Your Display function has cfsavecontent with tabular data and you are putting it into a cfform inside a cfc. I don't know why you are doing that. Insted, simply do an ajax call which return that cfsavecontent and then show it in the cfm.
Else, I guess you may have to output the cfform in the Display function. I may be wrong, but I don't think you can simply place a cfform inside a cfc and expect it to show up on the browser. CFC is not for browser rendering, it should be in a cfm.
Regarding the comment, "This is because I need to export to excel on click of a button for which I'd need cfform. Can you suggest some alternate to this functionality?", I will give you some things to think about.
First, you talk about recordsets containing several thousand rows and you have code where you attempt to display that in a browser. Quite simply, that will take an enormous amount of time to render. So, it's a bad idea.
Next, your code has functions for various queries but just one display function. Unless that's a cleverly written function that figures out the column names, it will only work if all the queries have the same columns. If that's the case, maybe you only need one query and some variables.
My suggestion is to start with a form where the user sends the appropriate information which determines what sql gets written. This form should also include a way for them to choose whether they want the results rendered in excel or html. If they choose html, do something to ensure that the data being returned does not overwhelm their browser.
By the way, re-useable code for displaying query results is a good idea. However, a custom tag might be a more conventional way to do it.

cftransaction and cfincludes

I have a question regarding the cftransaction tag.
I have a file as follow... let's call it act_update:
<cfif request.before>
<cfinclude template="act_before.cfm">
</cfif>
<!--- Here I have a lot of thing to update the core table --->
<cfif request.after>
<cfinclude template="act_after.cfm">
</cfif>
I may not touch this file because it is used also by other applications, but I have the hands on the two includes...
In the first include (the before) I putted:
<cftransaction action="begin" />
In the second include (the after) I putted the rest of the transaction:
<cftry>
<!--- Update here for another table --->
<cfcatch>
<cftransaction action="rollback" />
</cfcatch>
</cftry>
<cftransaction action="commit">
I made an error in the update of the latest table to test this, and I see that no rollback is done :(
Is there a solution for this ?
Thank you in advance,
Michel
You can't do what you're trying to do. CFTRANSACTION has two different functions.
Firstly, to make some DB code transactional, one needs to put it in a transaction block. This "wraps" the code that is transactional, eg:
<cftransaction>
<!--- your DB code here --->
</cftransaction>
To make something transactional, one NEEDS to do that.
Once that's in place, one can perform actions on the transaction such as commit, rollback, and setting save points. However these need to be in the main CFTRANSACTION block.
What you will need to do is wrap your call to act_update.cfm in CFTRANSACTION tags, and do your transaction control at that level.
This is, btw, all in the docs: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/ColdFusion/9.0/CFMLRef/WSc3ff6d0ea77859461172e0811cbec22c24-7c6b.html
The examples are not as clear or complete as they should be, but if you read the whole thing, it's covered.

What is wrong with my recursive method call?

I have a search function that executes a stored procedure and returns results. If there are no results, I want to try running the function one more time with a more generalized search. So, I put a cfif into my code -
<cfif results.recordCount EQ 0 And Not arguments.searchForPotentialMatches>
<cfset arguments.searchForPotentialMatches = True />
<cfinvoke method="thisMethod" argumentCollection="#arguments#" />
</cfif>
Basically, if there were no results AND I haven't already tried a generalized search, it should invoke this method again. Then, in the beginning of the method, before calling the stored procedure, I check if searchForPotentialMatches is true, and if it is, I generalize the search query.
There seems to be a problem, though... When I try to run this, it hangs - until there's a timeout with the stored procedure. Through debugging and outputting variables, I've been able to see that it gets to the stored procedure, and then gets stuck trying to execute it. However, using the original function before these rerun changes, if I do the regular search and then the generalized search in 2 separate calls, it executes correctly. So I'm not sure why it fails when I try to build this in programmatically... What am I doing wrong?
Could really be any number of things. Is all of this code inside of a cfc? Is that cfc in a persistent scope and have you properly var'd all your variables?
Can you execute the stored proc under both normal and generalized conditions standalone without issue?
Try pasting in more of your code (including the first call to the stored proc) so we can try to trace your data flow a bit more.
Recursion is:
seductively simple in theory and a pain in the ass in practice - to debug.
often necessary to walk trees or traverse graphs, but when one can do without, do without.
So as you wrote, I'd lose the recursion, and do it sequentially. Absent any more code as #scrittler requested, I'd rewrite as such:
<cfcomponent output="false">
<cffunction name="search" output="false" access="public" returntype="any" hint="I am called by the client">
<!--- <cfargument/> tags --->
<!--- what ever you need to do with the arg before actually searching --->
<cfset var results = doSearch(argumentCollection=arguments)>
<cfif NOT results.recordcount>
<!--- whatever you need to change about the args to perform a generalized search --->
<cfset var results = doSearch(argumentCollection=arguments)>
</cfif>
<cfreturn results>
</cffunction>
<cffunction name="doSearch" output="false" access="private" returntype="query" hint="I run the query">
<!--- <cfargument/> tags --->
<!--- results query (i.e. call to sproc)--->
<cfreturn results>
</cffunction>
</cfcomponent>
What is your access attribute on the function tag, have you given it a value that leaves the function unable to call itself?
This feels unfair... But the issue was with something completely different. The recursive call works correctly, but there was another field that was getting changed due to a check in the function before calling the stored procedure and causing the stored proc to hang. Sorry about that, and thanks for all your help!

How do I force evaluation of a cfif stored in a string?

I am trying to store coldfusion code in a database to be used for the subject of a cfmail. The code stored is as follows:
"RE: <cfif myData.general.legalName NEQ """"> {{dotlegalname}}<cfelse>{{docketLegalName}}</cfif>,
DOT## {{dot}}, Docket ##(s) {{docketString}}"
When I retrieve string from the database, I use cfsavecontent to attempt to evaluate it.
<cfsavecontent variable="subject">
<cfoutput>#myData.email.subject#</cfoutput>
</cfsavecontent>
I also tried
<cfsavecontent variable="subject">
<cfoutput>#evaluate(myData.email.subject)#</cfoutput>
</cfsavecontent>
And then I replace all the {{ }} with the appropriate values.
However, the subject of the email is stubbornly refusing to contain an evaluated cfif, and is instead showing the cfif as if it were a string.
Any ideas?
The only way to dynamically evaluate code that you are creating at runtime is via writing it out to a file, and then executing it.
The easiest way would be to write it a .cfm page in the Virtual File System (probably name the file after a UUID, so it's unique), and then it where you need to run the contents.
I wouldn't normally advocate generating code at runtime like this, but it can be the most elegant solution in some cases.
As an alternative, instead of storing the CFML code in the database, you have a set of CFML email template files that get stored in a directory on your server, and in your database you simply record which template needs to be included either via cfinclude or cfmodule.
You can't dynamically evaluate CFML stored in a database without first writing it to file and then using <cfinclude> to include it.
Further to Mark's answer here is some psuedo code:
<cfset fileName = createUUID() & ".cfm">
<cfset fileWrite( fileName, [CODE_FROM_DB]>
<cfinclude template="#fileName#">
<cfset fileDelete( fileName )>
I have used code like this before with no problems. Anything in the Virtual File System flies as it is all run in RAM. For best practice do remember to delete the files created ;)
If you absolutely have to do this, look at the evaluate() function. This, essentially, fires up a new CF thread, compiles the string passed to it, runs it, and returns the result.
If at all possible, I would try to find a way to move your logic to the actual file being run, not the string from the database. I assume you are pulling the data based on some string you've already built, so you might consider appending something to it, so you are looking up subjectDotLegal and subjectDocketLegal or something similar.
Remember, evaluate() is slow, ugly, and can be dangerous (it will run anything passed to it!). If there's a way around it, I suggest you use it.
why not just use something like mustache?
http://mustache.github.com/
https://github.com/pmcelhaney/Mustache.cfc
it has the ability to not only do some of the logic that you want in your script dynamically. i really would suggest you check out the project and maybe even improve and contribute on it.
OH and just for the chance to be on a soapbox: I've been emailing Adobe for years saying that we need the ability to dynamically parse and render CFML. Sadly my cries have only gotten ignored. maybe if more people complained that this feature needs to be added, it would get the attention it deserves.
To give an example: Assume code.txt is a text file that contains the following (just to facilitate simulating CFML stored in a db): <cfoutput>#now()#</cfoutput>
The following code would work:
<cfset q = queryNew("code") />
<cfset queryAddRow(q,1) />
<cfset querySetCell(q, "code", fileRead(expandPath('code.txt')), 1) />
<cfdump var="#q#">
<cfset newCodeFile = expandPath('dynamic.cfm') />
<cfset fileWrite(newCodeFile, q.code[1]) />
<cfinclude template="dynamic.cfm" />
In OpenBlueDragon there is the render function, which can do this.
You can mimic this function in Railo by creating a custom built-in function that saves the file into RAM then cfincludes it, using the following code:
<cffunction name="render" output="Yes" returntype="string"><!---
---><cfargument name="Code" required="Yes" type="string"><!---
---><cfset local.mapping = {'/render_ram_resource':'ram://'}><!---
---><cfapplication action="update" mappings="#local.mapping#"><!---
---><cfset local.fileName = "/render_ram_resource/_render_" &
createUUID() & ".cfm"><!---
---><cffile action="WRITE" file="#fileName#"
output="#arguments.Code#"><!---
---><cfinclude template="#fileName#"><!---
---><cffile action="DELETE" file="#fileName#"><!---
---></cffunction>
(This looks unusual because it needs to allow output, but prevent extra whitespace, hence why all the comments. Unfortunately SO's syntax highlighting seems to be confused by them.)
If you need an ACF-compatible solution, you'll need to use the regular filesystem and a pre-created mapping. (Well, in ACF9 and above you can use the RAM virtual filesystem, but afaik you can't create mappings on the fly like this.)
There's a better way, namely using in memory files. This way you don't have any I/O on the disk and therefore much faster:
For tags that take logical path, define mapping in Administrator. Execute in-memory CFM pages using the cfinclude tag:
Create a mapping for ram:/// so that it can be used in the tags. In this example, /inmemory is the mapping that points to ram:///.
For tags that take absolute path, specify the syntax as provided in the following example:
You can also delete the file from the ram usinf cffile and action delete.
Here's how I stored my header and footers for all pages in a record. This code can go at the top of each page. But I have it in the APPLICATION.cfm and it seems to be working great.
The key here is not use #pound# signs on your expressions. User [square braces]. The code will pick them and evaluate them and return the result back to the template.
It will substitute the number 0 if it can not evaluate an expression as a means of error handling.
<CFSET FooterID=1234> <!-- ID of the record you want to use -->
<CFQUERY NAME="StoredHeader" Datasource="DS1">
Select Body from templates where id=#FooterID#
</CFQUERY>
<CFSET Parse=StoredHeader.Body>
<CFLOOP CONDITION="FindNoCase('[',Parse,1) GT 0">
<CFSET STB=FindNoCase('[',Parse,1)>
<CFSET ENB=FindNoCase(']',Parse,1)>
<CFIF ENB-STB GT 0>
<CFSET BracketExp=Mid(Parse,STB+1,ENB-1-STB)>
<CFTRY>
<CFSET BracketValue=Evaluate(BracketExp)>
<CFSET Parse=ReplaceNoCase(Parse,'['&BracketExp&']',Evaluate(#BracketExp#))>
<cfcatch type="any">
<div>'Using ZERO 0 for missing <cfoutput>#BracketExp#' </cfoutput> </div>
<CFSET Parse=ReplaceNoCase(Parse,'['&BracketExp&']','0')>
</cfcatch>
</CFTRY>
</CFIF>
</CFLOOP>
<CFSET Footer=Parse>
<cfoutput>FOOTER</cfoutput>
I would try the built-in QuoteName function.