Billy Cravens

I’ve been writing SQL for a while – so long that I think I have a lot of rules stuck in my head that aren’t necessarily true.

We’ve all written INSERT statements:

INSERT INTO myTable (a,b,c,d)
VALUES ('E','F','G','H')

Assuming this is all of the columns, except for an auto-incrementing primary key, I by accident did the following (in SQL Server):

INSERT INTO myTable
VALUES ('E','F','G','H')

Apparently it’ll attempt to implicitly write to the columns as they’re ordered in the database, with the apparent exception of the auto-incrementing identify column.

Let me say this is BAD code, since it’s not clear what’s being inserted, and if the column order changes, or you add column, etc, all sorts of errors can spring up. The point is, however, I’ve always assumed that this query wouldn’t work. May be time to revisit some of those old skills I thought I long ago mastered.

On Mac, I typically use the ColdFusion Launcher GUI to start/stop ColdFusion (v 9). However, as ColdFusion 10 will be using Tomcat, you can start/stop in the same manner as you start/stop other servers apps like Tomcat, Apache, Railo, etc – via the command line, which is my preference. (I have a ~/servers/ folder, where I launch things via the command line as my development needs dictate: CFML, node.js, you name it)

With the move to Tomcat, the following is available to you in CF10: (I’m on Mac; adjust paths as appropriate for you platform; for example, on Windows, probbably c:\ColdFusion10\)


cd (cf10directory)
cd bin
./coldfusoion restart


Obviously this starts CF10 .. more examples follow, assuming you’re in (Coldfuion10Directory)/bin (these should be obvious, no explanation necessary)


./coldfusion stop



./coldfusion start


An additional option, “status”, just tells you what’s going on


./coldfusion status


The final option, “wsconfig” is how integrate CF10 into existing web servers like IIS or Apache. This command is pretty complex, and worthy of a post by itself. Supposedly to get a GUI similar to what you’re used to, you run


java -jar wsconfig.jar


but this file was nowhere to be found.

Much has been made of the move from Jrun to Tomcat in ColdFusion 10. This move has changed up the directory structure of ColdFusion 10 compared to prior versoins.

Many of us are no stranger to Tomcat, where CF is deployed as a WAR, inside the webapps folder (unless you changed this in (tomcatdirectory)/conf/server.xml). Say you wanted to add a virtual directory: you knew to go to the server.xml and add a new entry under the <Host> node.

So where is the Tomcat directory in ColdFusion 10?

(ColdFusion10installDirectory)/cfusion/runtime

Adjust as necessary of course for Windows. (probably c:\ColdFusion10\cfusion\runtime)

As best I can tell, Tomcat admin is as you’d expect, so to add a virtual host or change the root directory, you go to (directoryAsAbove)/conf/server.xml

I’ll of course update my blog as find exceptions to the normal Tomcat process

When I install ColdFusion on my local macine, I typically give it an easy little password for the admin, etc, something like “cf”

Of course, this is rare: most places tend to keep you from using something so easily guessed. I’d never use such a password in production, but I like to get in fast when I’m developing.

When installing the beta 1 release of ColdFusion 10, I saw this for the first time:

So CF 10 tries to set on the right path, but gives you the flexibility if you want an easy password. Maybe they should force you (or at least give you a develpment/production option: forced password complexity if it’s production), but nice to see this change (even if it means I have to click a few extra buttons during install)