Exporting data to Word with Cold Fusion
How to update/edit data using Cold Fusion
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Published on: Thursday 8th April 1999 By: Andrew Shatwell
Cold Fusion allows a lot of flexibility in modifying your applications once they have been published. However it can be tricky modifying the structure of the database itself. For this reason we will create all the tables in the database now.
This application used an Access 97 database. However, I cannot imagine any problems with using any ODBC-compliant database.
Regarding layout of files, my personal preference is to hold standard HTML files in one directory and image and Cold Fusion files in separate sub-directories below it.
You will need to create 4 tables in your database:
| tblArticles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Field Name | Type | Size |
| GroupID | Number (integer) | - |
| ThreadID | Number (long) | - |
| ThreadName | Text | 30 |
| Link | Text | 255 |
| Posted | Date/Time | - |
| UserName | Text | 25 |
| UserEmail | Text | 50 |
| Message | Memo | - |
| ArticleID | AutoNumber (aka counter) - no duplicate values | - |
| tblGroups | ||
|---|---|---|
| Field Name | Type | Size |
| GroupID | Number (integer) | - |
| GroupName | Text | 50 |
| ReadAccess | Text | 50 |
| WriteAccess | Text | 50 |
| Description | Text | 255 |
| tblThreads | ||
|---|---|---|
| Field Name | Type | Size |
| GroupID | Number (integer) | - |
| ThreadID | Number (long) | - |
| ThreadName | Text | 30 |
| UserName | Text | 25 |
| Distribution | Text | 255 |
| Users | ||
|---|---|---|
| Field Name | Type | Size |
| UserName | Text | 10 |
| FirstName | Text | 20 |
| Surname | Text | 20 |
| Text | 50 | |
| Access | Text | 255 |
| Lastlogin | Date/Time | - |
To add forums, it is simply a case of entering a record in the tblGroups table. For this example create one record in the tblGroups table as follows:
GroupID: 1
GroupName: My First Forum
ReadAccess: public
WriteAccess: public
Description: This is the first forum in the bulletin board.
It is up to you whether you allow the general public to become registered users of the system. The final document provides a web frontend for an administrator to register users. This could easily be adapted so that users can register themselves.
In the mean time we will create a record in the User table so that you can test some of the functions of the application. Enter the following in the Users table:
Username: [think of a user name for yourself]
FirstName: [your first name]
Surname: [your surname]
Email: [your email]
Access: public
Lastlogin: 1/1/74
In order for Cold Fusion to be able to access your database you need to publish it on the server. This task is normally done by the server administrator. For this application, it does not matter what name you publish the database under as long as you record this name in the application.cfm file.
Back to the Introduction, or forward to Displaying the forums
Exporting data to Word with Cold Fusion
How to update/edit data using Cold Fusion