Contents > CFML Reference > ColdFusion Tags > cfindex

cfindex

Populates a Verity search engine collection with an index of documents on a file system or of ColdFusion query result sets.

A collection must exist before it can be populated.

A collection can be indexed in the following ways:

• In ColdFusion, with the cfindex tag
• In the ColdFusion Administrator, which calls the cfindex tag
• Using a native Verity indexing tool, such as Vspider or MKVDK

For more information, see Building a Search Interface in Developing ColdFusion MX Applications.

Extensibility tags

<cfindex 
   collection = "collection_name"
   action = "action"
   type = "type"
   title = "title"
   key = "ID"
   body = "body"
   custom1 = "custom_value"
   custom2 = "custom_value"
   URLpath = "URL"
   extensions = "file_extensions"
   query = "query_name"
   recurse = "Yes" or "No"
   language = "language">

cfcollection, cfexecute, cfobject, cfreport, cfsearch, cfwddx

ColdFusion MX:

• The action attribute value optimize is obsolete. It does not work, and might cause an error, in ColdFusion MX.
• Changed the external attribute behavior: it is not necessary to specify the external attribute. (ColdFusion automatically detects whether a collection is internal or external.)
• Changed Verity operations behavior: ColdFusion supports Verity operations on Acrobat PDF files.
• Changed thrown exceptions: this tag can throw the SEARCHENGINE exception.
• Changed acceptable collection naming: this tag accepts collection names that include spaces.
• Changed query result behavior: the cfindex tag can index the query results from a cfsearch tag.

This tag populates Verity search engine collections with metadata from the following sources:

• Documents stored on a file system
• ColdFusion query result sets

The following table shows the dependent relationships among this tag's attribute values:

For all action values of this tag except update, use the cflock tag to protect the collection during tag execution.

For information on the file types you can use with the Verity search engine, see Article 22492, ColdFusion Server (versions 4.5 and higher): Supported File Types for Verity, on the Macromedia ColdFusion Support Center, at www.macromedia.com/support/coldfusion/.

<!--- for ACTION=UPDATE ----------------------------------------------->
<!--- for ACTION=UPDATE, #1 (TYPE=FILE) (key is a filename) ---->
<cfindex 
      collection="snippets" 
      action="update" 
      type="file"
      key="c:\inetpub\wwwroot\cfdocs\snippets\abs.cfm" 
      urlpath="http://localhost/cfdocs/snippets" 
      custom1="custom1" 
      custom2="custom2" > 

<!--- for ACTION=UPDATE, #2 (TYPE=FILE) (key is a query result set column) ---->
<cfquery       name="bookquery" 
      datasource="book">
      select *from book where bookid='file' 
</cfquery> 
<cfoutput 
      query="bookquery"> 
          --#url#,#description#-- <br>
</cfoutput> 
<cfindex
      collection="snippets"
      action="update"
      type="file"
      query="bookquery"
      key="description"
      urlpath="url">

<!--- for ACTION=UPDATE, #3 (TYPE=PATH) (extensions .htm, .html,.cfm,.cfml) --->
<cfindex       collection="snippets" 
      action="update"
      type="path"
      key="c:\inetpub\wwwroot\cfdocs\snippets" 
      urlpath="http://localhost/cfdocs/snippets" 
      custom1="custom1" 
      custom2="custom2" 
      recurse="no" 
      extensions=".htm, .html, .cfm, .cfml" >

<!--- for ACTION=UPDATE, #4 (TYPE=PATH) 
      (extensions are       files with no extension) ---->
<cfindex 
      collection="snippets"
      action="update"
      type="path"
      key="c:\inetpub\wwwroot\cfdocs\snippets" 
      urlpath="http://localhost/cfdocs/snippets" 
      custom1="custom1"
      custom2="custom2"
      recurse="no" 
      extensions="*." >

<!--- for ACTION=UPDATE, #5 (TYPE=PATH) 
      (extensions are files with any extension) ---->
<cfindex 
      collection="snippets"
      action="update"
      type="path"
      key="c:\inetpub\wwwroot\cfdocs\snippets"
      urlpath="http://localhost/cfdocs/snippets"
      custom1="custom1"
      custom2="custom2"
      recurse="no" 
      extensions=".*">

<!--- for ACTION=UPDATE, #6 (TYPE=PATH) (where the key 
      is a query result set column) ---->
<cfquery       name="bookquery"
      datasource="book"> 
      select * from book where bookid='path1' or bookid='path2' 
</cfquery> 
<cfoutput
      query="bookquery">
          --#url#,#description#-- <br> 
</cfoutput> 
<cfindex
      collection="snippets" 
      action="update"
      type="path"
      query="bookquery"
      key="description"
      urlpath="url" >

<!--- for ACTION=UPDATE, #7 (TYPE=CUSTOM) ---->
<cfquery       name="book" 
      datasource="book">
      select * from book 
</cfquery>
<cfindex 
      collection="custom_book" 
      action="update" 
      type="custom" 
      body="description" 
      key="bookid" 
      query="book"> 

<!--- for ACTION=REFRESH----------------------------------------------->
<!--- ACTION=REFRESH, #1 (TYPE=FILE) ---->
<cflock       name="verity" 
      timeout="60">
<cfindex 
      collection="snippets" 
      action="Refresh"
      type="file"
      key="c:\inetpub\wwwroot\cfdocs\snippets\abs.cfm" 
      urlpath="http://localhost/"
      custom1="custom1"
      custom2="custom2" >
</cflock>

<!--- ACTION=REFRESH, #2 (TYPE=PATH) ---->
<cflock       name="verity" 
      timeout="60">
<cfindex 
      collection="snippets"
      action="refresh"
      type="path"
      key="c:\inetpub\wwwroot\cfdocs\snippets"
      urlpath="http://localhost/cfdocs/snippets/"
      custom1="custom1"
      custom2="custom2"
      recurse="yes" 
      extensions=".htm,.html,.cfm,.cfml" >
</cflock>

<!--- ACTION=REFRESH, #3 (TYPE=CUSTOM) ---->
<cfquery       name="book" 
      datasource="book">
      select * from book 
</cfquery>

<cfindex 
      collection="custom_book" 
      action="refresh" 
      type="custom" 
      body="description" 
      key="bookid" 
      query="book">

<!--- for ACTION=DELETE----------------------------------------------->

<!--- ACTION=DELETE, #1 (TYPE=FILE) ---->
<cflock       name="verity" 
      timeout="60">
<cfindex 
      collection="snippets" 
      action="delete" 
      key="c:\inetpub\wwwroot\cfdocs\snippets\abs.cfm" >
</cflock>

<!--- ACTION=DELETE, #2 (TYPE=FILE) (the key is a query result set column) ---->
<cflock       name="verity" 
      timeout="60">
<cfquery       name="book" 
      datasource="book">
      select * from book where bookid='file'
</cfquery> 
<cfoutput 
      query="book">
          --#description#-- <br>
</cfoutput>    
<cfindex 
      collection="snippets" 
      action="delete"
      type="file"
      query="book" 
      key="description" >
</cflock>

<!--- ACTION=DELETE, #3 (TYPE=PATH) ---->
<cflock       name="verity" 
      timeout="60">
<cfindex 
      collection="snippets"
      action="delete"
      type="path"
      key="c:\inetpub\wwwroot\cfdocs\snippets" 
      extensions=".cfm"
      recurse="no">
</cflock>

<!--- ACTION=DELETE, #4 (TYPE=PATH) (key is a query result set column) ---->
<cflock       name="verity" 
      timeout="60">
<cfquery 
      name="bookquery"
      datasource="book">
          select * from book where bookid='path1'
        </cfquery> 
<cfoutput 
      query="bookquery"> 
          --#url#,#description#-- <br> 
</cfoutput> 
<cfindex 
      collection="snippets" 
      action="delete"
      type="path"
      query="bookquery" 
      key="description" >
</cflock>

<!--- ACTION=DELETE, #5 (TYPE=CUSTOM) ---->
<cflock name="verity" 
      timeout="60">
<cfquery       name="book" 
      datasource="book">
      select * from book where bookid='bookid1'
</cfquery>
<cfindex 
      collection="custom_book" 
      action="delete"
      type="custom"
      query="book"
      key="bookid" >
</cflock>

<!--- for ACTION=PURGE----------------------------------------------->
<cflock name="verity" 
      timeout="60"> 
<cfindex 
      action="purge"
      collection="snippets">
</cflock>

Contents > CFML Reference > ColdFusion Tags > cfindex

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Comments are no longer accepted for ColdFusion MX 6.1. ColdFusion 8 is the current version.

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skygx said on Aug 24, 2004 at 11:56 AM :

Docs for <cfindex> don't indicate that the "key" attribute value can be any unique alphanumeric string, and not necessarily a query column name. What is the reality here?

jrunrandy said on Aug 25, 2004 at 6:32 AM :

You are correct. If type="custom" but you do not specify the query attribute, the key attribute value is some other key value, although not necessarily unique (for example, body might include a snippet of text scraped from an HTML page and key might contain the URL to that page).

asterix said on Jan 14, 2005 at 3:37 PM :

Even though the docs say pdf files are indexed, on my system, running on Linux, *,pdf files are not indexed. This is true when using CFMX Admin Console or using the <cfindex> tag, and specifying *.pdf files for the extension. We use RedHat ES 2.1. Anyone else seen this behavior?

Josho said on Apr 7, 2005 at 11:15 AM :

PDF files frequently contain text in graphics, which cannot be indexed by an application; it can only be read by a human. If this is the case with your PDF files, they will not be indexed.

If you cannot select the text in your PDF while in Acrobat Reader, then it isn't textually stored, and thus will not be indexed.

Josho said on Apr 7, 2005 at 11:45 AM :

It's worth noting that <cfindex action="update"> or <cfindex action="delete"> may sometimes not work. If this happens, try placing the values in a query (you can do this with CF's query functions, i.e. QueryNew(), QueryAddRow(), QuerySetCell()) and then using the query="" attribute to supply the values that way.

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Current page: http://livedocs.adobe.com/coldfusion/6.1/htmldocs/tags-p64.htm

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