Adobe ColdFusion 8 Web Application Construction Kit, Volume 1: Getting Started

Application.cfc Structure

As you will learn in Chapter 26, “Building Reusable Components,” a ColdFusion Component is a collection of methods and data. You can think of it as a package of information (the data) and things you can do with the information (the methods). The Application.cfc file lets you do just that—create both data and methods. However, some methods are special. For example, if you create a method called onRequestStart, the method will execute before each and every page request. Table 19.1 lists these methods and how they work. Later in the chapter we will demonstrate how these work.

Table 19.1. Application.cfc Methods

Method	Purpose
onApplicationStart	Run when the application begins. This will run the first time a user executes a ...