ColdFusion

ColdFusion

An application development tool from Adobe for writing Web pages that interact with databases. Instead of writing tedious CGI and Perl scripts, operations are coded in the ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) which uses HTML-like tags embedded in the Web pages.

The ColdFusion engine, which interfaces with a Windows-based Web server, interprets the codes, accesses the database and delivers the results as HTML pages for the Web browser. ColdFusion was originally developed by Allaire Corporation, Cambridge, MA, which merged with Macromedia in 2001. In 2005, Macromedia was acquired by Adobe.

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(World-Wide Web, database, tool)

ColdFusion - Allaire Corporation's commercial database application development tool that allows databases to have a World-Wide Web interface, so a database can be queried and updated using a web browser. The ColdFusion Server application runs on the web server and has access to a database. ColdFusion files on the web server are HTML pages with additional ColdFusion commands to query or update the database, written in CFML. When the page is requested by the user, the web server passes the page to the Cold Fusion application, which executes the CFML commands, places the results of the CFML commands in the HTML file, and returns the page to the web server. The page returned to the web server is now an ordinary HTML file, and it is sent to the user. Examples of ColdFusion applications include order entry, event registration, catalogue search, directories, calendars, and interactive training. ColdFusion applications are robust because all database interactions are encapsulated in a single industrial-strength CGI script. The formatting and presentation can be modified and revised at any time (as opposed to having to edit and recompile source code). ColdFusion Server can connect with any database that supports ODBC or OLE DB or one that has a native database driver. Native database drivers are available for Oracle and Sybase databases. ColdFusion is available for Windows, Solaris, and HP-UX. A development environment for creating ColdFusion files, called ColdFusion Studio, is also available for Windows. Latest version: MX(6), as of 2003-07-11. The filename extension for ColdFusion files is .cfm http://coldfusion.com/.