Recent Web Log Entries By Ben Nadel
Ask Ben: When To Provide Default Values In ColdFusion
Posted: June 6, 2011 at 10:37 AM by Ben Nadel
Having read "Object-Oriented Programming in ColdFusion" by Matt Gifford, I'm excitedly getting into creating components. With lots of functions. So as I was coding, I started thinking about CFFunction and CFArgument, and came up with a question I couldn't answer: Generally, when supplying an optional argument, I provide a default value. But is the... read more »
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Ask Ben: Converting A Parent-Child Data Table Into A Nested XML Document
Posted: October 28, 2010 at 2:02 PM by Ben Nadel
Recently, I was asked a question about taking parent-child hierarchical data records and converting them into a nested XML document. Whenever you deal with a parent-child relationship in which the depth of nesting is indeterminate, you get into a situation where you will probably have to hit the database a number of times. So for example, if I had... read more »
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Ask Ben: Processing Files With CFThread In ColdFusion
Posted: March 30, 2010 at 9:56 AM by Ben Nadel
Ben, I'm not quite sure about how threads work and when to use them. Here's a for instance: The user has uploaded a bunch of files that I have to do some processing on. It may take a while. I'd like to send them back a notice that the process will take a while and I'll send them an email when it's done. In the meantime, I want the files to get pro... read more »
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Ask Ben: Blocking WSDL Access In A ColdFusion Application
Posted: March 17, 2010 at 8:56 AM by Ben Nadel
Is there any way to hide the WSDL file generated from a CFC from being viewed on a browser? Evidently .NET allows you to modify the web.config to make this happen; was looking for an equivalent in CF. Thanks much. First off, I have to say that I have no idea why you would want to do this, and I have to say I'm very curious. Perhaps you are trying... read more »
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Ask Ben: Replacing A String That Is Not Inside Of Another String
Posted: February 25, 2010 at 9:42 AM by Ben Nadel
I can't remember where it was exactly (maybe Twitter), but the other day, someone asked me a question about replacing a string that was not contained within another string. It was something like, "I want to replace all apostrophes in a string. But, I don't want to do that if they are inside HTML comments." While this might seem like a simple quest... read more »
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Ask Ben: Using jQuery To Act On A Click Event Based On The Target Element
Posted: December 30, 2009 at 9:53 AM by Ben Nadel
Hi Ben, How can I disable the click event of a parent element? In my code, I have attached a click event to a row ('<tr>'), however, one of the <td> elements part of the row contains a checkbox. When clicking on a checkbox, I don't want the click event to be performed. How can I disable the click event on the <tr> element? One th... read more »
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Ask Ben: Using ColdFusion Components As Return Types, Argument Types, And Property Types
Posted: December 28, 2009 at 8:06 PM by Ben Nadel
Hi Ben! I have been reading your blog for about four years now (since I first played with Skin Spider), and I finally have a question to ask. I have finally started playing with Coldfusion 9, and I must say I'm impressed thus far. That said, I've stumbled upon my first problem that I haven't been able to find a solution to: How do you (or rather, ... read more »
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Ask Ben: Showing Related Form Fields Based On A Given Selection
Posted: December 28, 2009 at 9:49 AM by Ben Nadel
Happy Holidays! I am trying to finish a input form in my website but I am no clue How do it, Please, Can you help me? The page is PHP contact form, the issue is when a visitor select option 1 then the form need to ask (and show) for input 1, input 2; if the visitor select option 2 the form need to ask (and show) for input 3. Before the option 1 or... read more »
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Ask Ben: Selecting Node Attributes In XSLT Based On List Values In ColdFusion
Posted: November 9, 2009 at 10:02 AM by Ben Nadel
Ben, do you know how to check to see if a xml attribute is in a list? I'm looking at the contains() function, but I'm not sure of the correct syntax or if there is a better way, but I cant seem to get this to work. I don't know how to reference the value of the @system as the second argument of the contains. Can I used something like 'this' (minus... read more »
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Ask Ben: Displaying A Blog Teaser (Showing The First N Words)
Posted: September 23, 2009 at 10:22 AM by Ben Nadel
Hi Ben, I am writing from London, United Kingdom. How can I display the first 50 words of a blog post as a teaser using some jQuery code snippet? I gotta follow you on twitter. cheers. I know you asked to see this as a jQuery code snippet - and I will get to that - but first, I want to approach this from a ColdFusion view point. I think it makes ... read more »
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Ask Ben: Parsing Nested Lists With A Single Delimiter In ColdFusion
Posted: September 22, 2009 at 10:17 AM by Ben Nadel
Ben, How would I go about splitting a list into multiple lists? For example I have a list: 07/08/2009|1,573,067.20|8/8/2009|1,563,000.20 This list can be infinite in values but will always contain a date/amount combination. I need to split these into lists of 2 one date/amount lists. Seems like it should be easy enough to do but I think I have b... read more »
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Ask Ben: Excluding Script Tag Content From The jQuery .text() Method
Posted: September 22, 2009 at 9:26 AM by Ben Nadel
Hi Ben, I have come across an issue with jQuery when using "text().length" and I am hoping that you may be able to help. I have applied a CSS class called hideEmpty to a div. I am then using jQuery text().length to provide the total length of that element, including child nodes, and hiding it if it is low. This works very well in most situations b... read more »
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Ask Ben: Creating ColdFusion Templates On The Fly
Posted: September 21, 2009 at 9:42 AM by Ben Nadel
Hi Ben, frequent reader, first time writer. I'd be surprised if this hasn't been asked yet, but can't seem to find the answer anywhere. I'm trying to figure out a way to allow an application to build basic Coldfusion pages on the fly. i.e. this is a simple CMS that I'm building for someone, where actual page templates are 10 lines long and have a ... read more »
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Ask Ben: Updating Columns In An Existing ColdFusion Query Object
Posted: September 14, 2009 at 8:17 AM by Ben Nadel
Hi Ben, I have a question:), Is there a way to update a result set that was generated using QuerySetCell. I have a recordset that gets some null values. After the temporary table has been generated, I want to update the empty strings with 0. Is there a way to update query of queries or tables generated by querySetCell method. Thanks. I'm really g... read more »
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Ask Ben: Creating A PDF And Attaching It To An Email Using ColdFusion
Posted: September 4, 2009 at 5:39 PM by Ben Nadel
Do you know how to save a cfdocument and then attach it to a cfmail all on submit? This is one of the many tasks that ColdFusion happens to make very easy. We can use the CFDocument tag to generate the PDF and store it in memory; then, we can use the CFMail tag and the CFMailParam tag to attach our generated PDF to the outgoing email. With the re... read more »
