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Ben Nadel at InVision In Real Life (IRL) 2019 (Phoenix, AZ) with: Adam DiCarlo
Ben Nadel at InVision In Real Life (IRL) 2019 (Phoenix, AZ) with: Adam DiCarlo

My Adobe ColdFusion 2025 Hackathon Entry

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This is the write-up for my Adobe ColdFusion (ACF) 2025 Hackathon submission. The primary goal of the hackathon is to have fun. The secondary goal of the hackathon is to showcase at least one of the features newly available in the latest version of ACF.

View this code in my Hackathon project on GitHub.

Entry Restrictions

The hackathon took place from June 14-16, 2025 and had the following requirements:

  • Application must run on Adobe ColdFusion 2025.
  • Submissions must be self-contained and runnable (drop into cfusion/wwwroot).
  • Any included libraries must be open source licensed.

Hackathon: "Sitter Snacks"

We have a dog, Lucy. She's a geriatric Yorkie with extreme separation anxiety and a problematic bladder. As such, she has a lot of trouble being left on her own. So, when we go out, we hire a dog sitter to come and keep Lucy company while we're at the restaurant / movie / hike, etc.

Leading up to these outings, I go and get snacks for the sitter; and, if the outing overlaps with a meal, I'll ask her if she wants something more substantial like a pizza or a burger or something. As a hackathon idea, I thought it would be fun to create a small website where she can go and explicitly select the snacks that she wants (instead of me guessing); and then I can pick them up at the store on the day-of.

I'm calling this website "Sitter Snacks". It has one primary page experience, broken down into sections:

  • Emergency contact information.
  • Drinks.
  • Snacks.
  • Meals.
  • QR Code.

Next to each entry within the drinks, snacks, and meals section is a toggle button that indicate the desire for that specific amenity. It's essentially a menu (in the restaurant sense) that the sitter is opting into:

Screenshot of main page in Sitter Snacks.

Each of the sections has a separate configuration page that allows the line-items to be added, edited, and removed.

Built Using Docker For Mac

I build this using Docker For Mac. If you want to run this, you should be able to just pull-down the repository and run:

docker compose up

... from within the root directory.

ColdFusion 2025 Feature Exploration

Here are the ColdFusion 2025 features that I was trying to explore in this hackathon:

Aside: keep in mind that my hackathon contains basically no error handling and is extremely light on any architecture. But, in a way, that's a feature of ColdFusion as well — that it can be as robust or as light-weight as you need it to be. The effort of the build is commensurate with the complexity of the application.

CSV Files (.csv)

Example: CsvFileProxy.cfc

One of the biggest new features in ACF 2025 is the ability to read, write, and process CSV (Comma Separated Value) data. To explore this, I'm storing each user's contact info, drinks, snacks, and meal data in a set of CSV files contained within an UUID-based user-specific folder.

Property Files (.properties)

Example: PropertiesFileProxy.cfc

ACF 2025 gives us the ability to create and consume .properties files. A .properties files is a relatively simple collection of key-value pairs. I'm using this in two ways:

  • Store configuration settings for the application itself.
  • Store some metadata about the user who signed-up.
Screenshot of SublimeText sidebar.

JAR Paths

Example: BarCoder.cfc

Another very exciting (perhaps the most exciting) feature of ACF 2025 is the ability to provide a list of JAR paths to the createObject() call. Now, we can load custom Java libraries with better class-loader isolation. In this project, I'm using this to load the ZXing barcode library that I then use to render the shareable QR code at the bottom of the site.

Content Security Policy (CSP)

Example: layout.cfm

Since this site is rendering user-generated content (UGC), security is a consideration. I've included the this.enableCspNonceForScript setting in my Application.cfc, which automatically injects a Content-Security-Policy HTTP header with a randomized nonce (n-once). Then, I'm using the new getCspNonce() function to apply this nonce to my script and link tags.

Null Coalescing

Example: flattenForm()

In addition to "partially fixing" the Elvis Operator (no longer treating the empty-string as a falsy), ACF 2025 introduced the null coalescing operator (??). This works similarly to the Elvis Operator, but the right-hand expression is only used if the left-hand value is null / undefined (ie, the notions of truthy/falsy don't apply). I'm using this in a bunch of places when consuming data that may not be fully defined.

Trailing Commas

Example: this.mappings

ACF 2025 now allows trailing commas in a variety of places such as array and struct definitions. This really has no inherent application value other than developer experience (DX). Specifically, it allows git diff rendering and Pull Request (PR) rendering to be a little cleaner. This is really only relevant when working with other developers who are reviewing PRs. That said, I'm using it in a bunch of places in the hackathon.

Road Bumps and Bugs

In addition to running out of time, and not getting to all the little features I wanted to explore, I also ran into some issues along the way.

  • No Docker build for Apple M1/ARM silicon. I'm a MacBookPro 2022; and I was promised an M1 build in the second 2025 Beta release; but, apparently, this never made it into the roadmap. Thankfully, the good people over at Ortus Solutions provide an ARM build for all versions of ColdFusion.

  • this.enableCspNonceForScript breaks CFDump / writeDump(). The way CFDump operates is that it renders both a <style> tag and a <script> tag in the page response. However, neither of these tags include the getCspNonce() functionality. So, your data is still dumped-out; but, it has no styling or interactivity.

    To get around this, I capture the output buffer, check for the substring, table.cfdump_, and if it exists, I override the CSP HTTP header to allow everything (essentially disabling the CSP).

  • The CSP HTTP header that ColdFusion applies does not include any information about inline <style> tags. Which means, even if I apply a getCspNonce() to my <style> tag, the browser will still reject it. I'm using HTMX in this project for the toggle-buttons. And, to get around the CSP issue, I had to tell HTMX not to inject loading-indicator styles.

  • The arrayOfStruct format for CSV file generation is completely broken. The columns of the CSV are output in the order of the struct-key iteration (which is entirely unpredictable) instead of in the order of the header columns definition. To work around this, I map the data onto the the arrayOfCFArray format just before I call csvWrite().

  • ACF 2025 doesn't support unsigned integers. As such, when I use a value like ffcccccc to define the colors for the ZXing barcode, ACF complains that it can't fit it into an int. To get around this, I use the "two's complement", where I subtract 4294967296 from the value in order to translate it into an int range.

  • The writeDump() function doesn't allow var to be passed-in as part of the argumentCollection mechanics. As such, in my dump() alias UDF (user defined function), I have to explicitly provide the var argument in addition to the argumentCollection.

  • ACF 2025 still doesn't allow the cfloop(collection) to define both an item (value) and an index (key). You can do this with a cfloop(array). As such, I have to calculate the value within the iteration body of a struct.

  • ACF 2025 still doesn't allow field[] notation for collecting form field submissions as an array. As such, I have to polyfill this functionality in the onRequestStart() application life-cycle event handler.

  • array.each() doesn't return the array reference, it returns undefined. As such, you can't include .each() in a fluent set of operations on an array. As such, it just has to be part of a subsequent statement.

  • array.isDefined(0) throws an out-of-bounds error. It should just return false since 0 is not defined on the array. As such, I sometimes have to check .len() instead of using .isDefined().

And yet, I had a blast! 'Cause CFML is the cat's pajamas, yo!

This ColdFusion code was 99.99% human generated (someone has to train the slop machines). I needed help from ChatGPT to figure out the two's complement issue for the int error. And, I used it to try and figure out the getCspNonce() bug for <style> tags.

Fun fact: the movie Happy Gilmore came out 13 years before my dog sitter as born. I'm officially old :scream:

Short link: https://bennadel.com/4814

Reader Comments

2 Comments

I'm trapped in a windoze machine world, but I want to try to get it going in docker...
And I hope those are bogus phone numbers (though I messaged yours) cause you don't want every curious yahoo (like me) reaching out to you... (or maybe you do!)
Anyway looking forward to wading through your code and learning a few things and many thanks for pointing out the pitfalls in this release of 2025 as well as a bit of what can be done wid it!

16,055 Comments

@All,

I'm excited to announce that I came in 2nd place in the ACF 2025 Hackathon - Mark Takata announced it on LinkedIn. Woot woot! Can't wait to see the other contestant code - will share a link here when I know what it is.

@Jeff,

All good - any 555 number in the US is "fake". It's what they use in the movies.

1 Comments

Stuck with new machine setup, what would you use as an IDE to work with CF in 2025? Many thnaks in advance

16,055 Comments

@Will,

Personally, I still use SublimeText as my IDE. And there's a CFML package for it (maintained by a few people), I think. But, I'm pretty sure that Adobe now has a Visual Studio Code extension. But, I don't know much about it.

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