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Clearing the ColdFusion template cache programmatically

Note: This blog post is from 2012. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
I was asked today how one might clear the template cache ColdFusion template cache programmatically, as opposed to clicking the button in the CF Admin (Caching) page. The good news is that pretty much anything done in the CF Admin can be done programmatically, via the CF Adminapi, since CF 7. And there is in fact an AdminAPI method to clear the template cache. I'll show the code in a moment.

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How to identify what jvm.config a ColdFusion instance uses (and vice-versa)

Note: This blog post is from 2012. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
If you run ColdFusion in its Multiserver mode (multiple instances), you may know that you can configure things so that different instances use different jvm.config files, otherwise by default, all instances share just one. (If you didn't know how to change that, particularly if running CF as Windows Services, I'll offer some references explaining more.)

But have you ever wondered which jvm.config is used by a given instance? Or perhaps found multiple jvm.configs in your [jrun4]\bin directory and wondered which instance each went with? The answer isn't as straightforward as it may seem, when you're running CF as Windows Services. There's no single CF feature that reports this, but I do offer a solution here.

The simple answer is that one can find the information in the registry. The longer answer, including how to find that, as well as how to get that info more easily from the command line if you may prefer, follows.

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Getting ColdFusion 8/9 downloads (with Verity): ways that may work even after today

Note: This blog post is from 2012. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.

By now most in the CF world (who are connected to community news, at least) should have heard that today is the last day Adobe will be offering a release of CF 9 including Verity, and CF8 at all. I offer here a little more news on that, but more important I offer how you can still find and get those downloads if you want them, even when no longer listed as links on the site. They're now no longer easy to find.

(And I have updated the entry as of Aug 3, 2012, and all below still applies, unless stricken out.)

First, as for what's changing, it's that Adobe has to "pull from the shelves" any releases of CF that include Verity. But while many have been asserting that CF9 was going away, that's not true. And even CF8 can be obtained formally under certain conditions.

But I also offer here some ways you may be able to get these files even if Adobe no longer offers links to them.

But let's tackle a few points of common misinformation this week.

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Could CF image processing be killing your ColdFusion server? Explanation and solutions.

Note: This blog post is from 2012. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Are you having slow ColdFusion pages and wondering what may be the cause? There can of course be many root causes, but a common one that I'm finding lately as I help people is due to using certain of CF's image processing features, especially resizing such as to create thumbnails after a file is uploaded (or when many files are uploaded).

Such folks may be using the CFIMAGE action="resize" tag, or the imageResize() or ImageScaleToFit() functions to do resizing. (Or they may be also processing images using ImageRotate, ImageShear, or ImageTranslate, though the defaults for those are not problematic like the resize/scale tag/function processing).

The "problem" (if this is the cause of a slow page) is due to a default "interpolation" setting for CFIMAGE resizing, imageResize, and ImageScaletoFit. The default may not perform well at all. The good news is that the value is configurable, and you can test to compare quality/performance of difference values, as will explained below. There are still some other things to consider also. (If you're currently using CFIMAGE to do resizing, jump to the last section of this entry to see an example of code switching from the "slow" approach to the faster one. But really, you ought to read the rest of this entry to understand what's being proposed.)

While I offer all the info here for your consideration, if you need help implementing the solution, or better understanding how to find and resolve these or other problems affecting your CF server performance, see more on my CF server troubleshooting consulting services.

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CFMyths: "If/when I apply Cumulative Hotfixes, I need apply only the latest CHF, right?"

Note: This blog post is from 2010. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
This is the second post in my planned CFMyths series. In the first, I addressed the myth that "When I download CF to install it from scratch, it has the latest fixes/updaters".

Here's the next, related, myth:

True or False: "If/when I apply Cumulative Hotfixes, I need apply only the latest CHF, right?"

For instance, let's say you're currently running CF 9 update 1 or CF 8.0.1 and discover (perhaps due to my last blog entry) that you had never applied any of their associated CHFs. It would seem you should just be able to apply the latest CHF and not bother with anything related to the previous ones, right?

Answer: Well, yes and no.

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CFMyths: "When I download CF to install it from scratch, it has the latest fixes/updaters"

Note: This blog post is from 2010. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Today I'm starting a new series on CFMyths, some common misconceptions that I find myself often helping correct on lists/forums or with my troubleshooting customers.

First myth up for consideration:

True or false: "If/when I download CF to install it from scratch, the installer has all the latest fixes (updaters, at least)"

Answer: False (generally). For instance, if you download CF9 today (Dec 2010), you still get CF 9.0, released originally in Oct 2009. You don't get the latest updater (9.0.1 as of this writing, released July 2010), though its existence is at least mentioned on the page, nor of course does it then include any hotfixes or cumulative hotfixes.

Why not, you may wonder? I'll explain more in a moment, along with more about hotfixes and updaters as concepts (and where to find them specifically, for each CF release).

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CF911: Want to modify the CF Step Debugger's use of a random port?

Note: This blog post is from 2010. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Here's a quick tip (and some elaboration): if you've noticed that the CF step debugger (in CF 8 or 9) causes CF to listen on a randomly changing port, you can change that behavior (assuming you have good reason to do so, such as perhaps some challenges with firewall configuration).

It's a simple JVM tweak to cause it to use a fixed port:

-DDEBUGGER_SERVER_PORT=portNumber

You can add this either in the "Java & JVM" page of the CF Admin (if in Standard or Enterprise Server), or on the java.args line in the jvm.config file (for any form of CF).

You do need to restart CF for this to take effect.

A few warnings are in order

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Spying on ORM database interactions: Hibernate, Transfer, etc. on any CFML engine

Note: This blog post is from 2009. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
As people use CF9's ORM feature (or other ORMs like Transfer and Reactor, or indeed Hibernate, on any version of CF6+ or indeed any other CFML engine), they may be left wondering what sort of SQL interactions happen "under the covers" between the ORM framework and the database engine (whether in a given request, or perhaps at startup of CF).

Well, there are several ways you can watch them, as this entry will discuss, and some may be better suited to the job than others. It can be very interesting to discover what's going on, especially if you're having any suspected performance problems which you think may be related to ORM processing (or just if you wonder what all it does for you).

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You may have mistakenly applied an 8.0 CHF on a 8.0.1 CF server, and not realize it!

Note: This blog post is from 2009. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
I just helped a customer today solve a problem where he swore he had applied the latest Cumulative Hotfix (CHF) for CF 8.0.1, but I showed him that instead he had mistakenly applied the CHF for 8.0. I know how it happened, and showed him. I hope how you can avoid the same mistake.

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ColdFusion 8 migration resources (from 6, 7, or even earlier)

Note: This blog post is from 2009. Some content may be outdated--though not necessarily. Same with links and subsequent comments from myself or others. Corrections are welcome, in the comments. And I may revise the content as necessary.
Someone asked me about migrating from CF 6 to 8, lamenting that he couldn't find any migration resources. Sadly, there are no official Adobe resources for upgrading to CF8, but I will mention a guide to upgrading to CF 7 from CF 6 (or even 5) that Macromedia offered, which many may have missed. I'll also point out a couple other things and blog entries of others that do focus more on moving to CF 8 specifically (and perhaps others will comment with still more.)

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