Using CFContent's Variable Attribute Stops All Further Processing

Yesterday, it was called into question whether or not the use of CFContent's Variable attribute prevented any further processing of the page request. I had suggested it did; but, I wasn't 100% sure. Thinking back, I couldn't remember if I have ever had any code after a CFContent tag that used the Variable attribute (often times, it's the last thing on the page). As such, I thought it'd be easy to whip up a quick test of ColdFusion's expected functionality.

The first thing I did was enable session management for the page request. I did this because the ColdFusion livedocs don't expressly refer to page processing - they refer simply to page output:

When you use this attribute [Variable], any other output on the current CFML page is ignored; only the contents of the file are sent to the client.

This is a bit ambiguous as to whether it refers to code execution or just to page output. By enabling session management, we can test session value updates even if the generated output is not being streamed to the client.

Application.cfc

Now that session management is enabled, I created a page that generated page output and updated session values both before and after a CFContent tag:

As you can see, I am incrementing and logging the session's hitCount variable both before and after the CFContent tag. In this way, I can see if the session value is updated post-CFContent even if the "output" generated by the CFDump tag is not rendered. After refreshing the page a few times, here's what the log file contains:

Before CFContent (1)
***********************************************************

Before CFContent (2)
***********************************************************

Before CFContent (3)
***********************************************************

Before CFContent (4)
***********************************************************

As you can see, not only does the second CFDump tag never render to the log file, the incrementing session hitCount demonstrates that no code was executed after the CFContent tag.

I had thought that this was the expected CFContent behavior, so it's nice to see ColdFusion work this way. That said, I should remind people that this is only for a very specific use-case of CFContent - the Variable attribute (as well at the File attribute); all other uses of the CFContent tag will simply affect the response headers and the existing output buffer, allowing the rest of the page to process normally.

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