Chapter 2: Overview of CFML

Overview

Macromedia ColdFusion Markup Language (CFML) is a server-side scripting language used to create dynamic Web pages for ColdFusion applications. CFML is a tag-based language that's similar to HTML. It has a beginning tag and an ending tag that encloses the information to be displayed. CFML also supports functions for formatting, retrieving system variables, and performing mathematical operations.

Unlike HTML, CFML works with dynamic content. CFML uses Web server API, which enables you to efficiently handle a large number of transactions. ColdFusion supports over 80 tags, 255 functions, and 800 third-party components, and it provides a large library, enabling faster development of applications.

This chapter describes the building blocks of CFML, such as tags, datatypes, variables, functions, expressions, and flow-control statements.