Components and virtual directories.

Question

CF8hf3, W2K3, IIS.
Site1\application.cfc (-> this.name = "site1";)
Site1\Components\MyComponent.cfm
Site1\UseComponentToShowSiteNameOnSite1.cfm
Site2\application.cfc (-> this.name = "site2";)
Site2\Components ... this is an IIS virtual directory that
points to Site1\Components
Site2\UseComponentToShowSiteNameOnSite2.cfm
Problem #1
Create this cfc and place it in \Site1\Components. The
virtual directory makes it available to site2 as well. The website
root for the site containing the virtual directory has a different
application.cfc than the website that has this test component in
it's physical structure.
<cfcomponent displayname="test component">
<cffunction name="TestFunction" output="No"
returntype="string" access="remote">
<cfreturn application.applicationname>
</cffunction>
</cfcomponent>
If this component is called directly:
http://site2/Components/test.cfc?method=testfunction
it returns the applicationname for site1, however, when used
like so:
<cfoutput>
#createobject("Component",
"site2.Components.Test").TestFunction()#
</cfoutput>
it returns site2.
Problem #2
A CFGrid tag on site2 with this bind attribute:
bind="cfc:site2.Components.Test.TestFunction({cfgridpage}...
generates this js in the rendered page:
ColdFusion.Bind.cfcBindHandler(<snip>...
:_cf_grid_errorhandler,'cfc':'/site1/Components/test.cfc','cfcFunction':'TestFunction'
...<snip>
On both occasions it appears the cf server traverses the
physical path and uses that to resolve Application.cfc which is
different behavior than any other processed file.
Thanks!
Mischa.

Answer 1

MU wrote:
> On both occasions it appears the cf server traverses the
physical path and
> uses that to resolve Application.cfc which is different
behavior than any other
> processed file.
Yep, exactly as it explains it will in the documentation on
Application.cfm and Application.cfc files. CF looks for these
in the
physical path, not the virtural path of the directory.
This is a big reason most CF developers will tout that a
component
should only know what is passed to it is arguments. Expecting
it to
'know' something such as what application it is in, or what
is in the
session scope and such will experience problems just like
this.
Want to see what a bigger headache this could be. Set some
session data
in each site1 and site2 that is different and then check the
results
with the same kind of testing.
<quote from="CF Documentation">
*How ColdFusion MX finds and process application definition
pages*
ColdFusion MX uses the following rules to locate and process
the
Application.cfc, Application.cfm, and OnRequestEnd.cfm pages
that define
application-specific elements. The way ColdFusion MX locates
these files
helps determine how you structure an application.
Each time ColdFusion MX processes a page request it does the
following:
When ColdFusion starts processing the request, it does the
following:
It searches the page’s directory for a file named
Application.cfc. If
one exists, it creates a new instance of the CFC, processes
the initial
events, and stops searching. (ColdFusion MX creates a new
instance of
the CFC and processes its initialization code for each
request.)
If the requested page’s directory does not have an
Application.cfc file,
it checks the directory for an Application.cfm file. If one
exists,
ColdFusion MX logically includes the Application.cfm page at
the
beginning of the requested page and stops searching further.
If the requested page’s directory does not have an
Application.cfc or
Application.cfm file, *ColdFusion MX searches up the
directory tree and
checks each directory first for an Application.cfc file and
then, if one
is not found, for an Application.cfm page, until it reaches
the root
directory (such as C:\).* When it finds an Application.cfc or
Application.cfm file, it processes the page and stops
searching.
</quote>
Note in the last paragraph on what tree ColdFusion searches
and where it
stops.