cfapplication

Description

Defines the scope of a ColdFusion application; enables and disables storage of Client variables; specifies the Client variable storage mechanism; enables Session variables; and sets Application variable timeouts.

Category

Application framework tags

Syntax

<cfapplication 
   name = "application_name"
   loginStorage = "cookie" or "session"
   clientManagement = "yes" or "no"
   clientStorage = "datasource_name" or "Registry" or "Cookie" 
   setClientCookies = "yes" or "no" 
   sessionManagement = "yes" or "no"
   sessionTimeout = #CreateTimeSpan(days, hours, minutes, seconds)#
   applicationTimeout = #CreateTimeSpan(days, hours, minutes, seconds)#
   setDomainCookies = "yes" or "no"
   scriptProtect = "none", "all", or list>

See also

cfassociate, cferror, cflock, cfmodule; Application.CFC Reference; Designing and Optimizing a ColdFusion Application and Integrating J2EE and Java Elements in CFML Applications in ColdFusion MX Developer's Guide

History

ColdFusion MX 7: Added scriptProtect attribute

ColdFusion MX 6.1: Added loginStorage attribute

ColdFusion MX:

• Changed how persistent scopes are available: Server, Session, and Application scope variables are stored in memory as structures. In earlier releases, only Session and Application scope variables were stored this way. You cannot access the UDF function scope as a structure.
• Changed the algorithm for setting the CFTOKEN variable value: if the registry key UUIDToken is a non-zero value, ColdFusion uses a number constructed from the UUID plus a random number. Otherwise, ColdFusion sets the CFTOKEN variable default value using a positive random integer. (In earlier releases, ColdFusion always used a number constructed from the UUID plus a random number.)

Attributes

Usage

This tag is typically used in the Application.cfm file, to set defaults for a ColdFusion application.

Note: You can also set the application defaults in the Application.cfc file. For more information, see Application variables.

This tag enables application variables, unless they are disabled in the ColdFusion Administrator. The Administrator setting also overrides the sessionManagement attribute. For more information, see Configuring and Administering ColdFusion MX.

If ColdFusion is running on a cluster, you must specify clientStorage = "cookie" or a data source name; you cannot specify "registry".

ColdFusion generates an error if the application name is longer than 64 characters.

The CFTOKEN variable is 8 bytes in length. Its range is 10000000 --99999999.

Note: If you specify ClientStorage=cookie, any Client scope variables set following a cfflush tag are not saved in the Client browser.

Protecting variables from cross-site scripting attacks

The ScriptProtect attribute lets you protect one or more variable scopes from cross-site scripting attacks, where a client attempts to get your application to send malicious code back to a user's browser. In these attacks, user input (for example, from form fields or from URL variables) sets a CF variable which is destined for user output. The submitted data includes malicious code, such as JavaScript or an applet or object reference, which then executes on the user's system.

Note: The ColdFusion MX Administrator Settings page Enable Global Script Protection option determines the default script protection setting. You can use the scriptProtect attribute to override the Administrator setting. You can also use the Application.cfc initialization code to set the protection value.

The ColdFusion MX cross-site scripting protection operation is done when ColdFusion MX processes the application settings at the beginning of a request. Thus, it can process the URL, and Cookie, CGI, and Form variables in a user's request. By default, it replaces occurrences of the following tag names with the text InvalidTag: object, embed, script, applet, and meta. It allows these names in plain text, replaces the words if they are used as tag names.

You can specify any or all ColdFusion scopes for protection, but only the Form, URL, CGI, and Cookie scopes have variables that are often provided by unknown sources. Also, protecting a scope requires additional processing. For these reasons, the all attribute value applies protection to only the four scopes.

The script protection mechanism applies a regular expression that is defined in the cf_root/lib/neo-security.xml file in the server configuration, or the cf_root/WEB-INF/cfusion/lib/neo-security.xml file in the J2EE configuration to the variable value. You can customize the patterns that ColdFusion replaces by modifying the regular expression in the CrossSiteScriptPatterns variable.

Locking server, application, and session variables

When you set or update variables in the server, application, and session scopes, use the cflock tag with the scope attribute set to the following value:

• For server variables, specify "server"
• For application variables, specify "application"
• For session variables, specify "session"

In some cases, you should also lock code that reads variables in these scopes. For information about locking scopes, see cflock.

Example

<!--- This example shows how to use cflock to prevent race conditions during data updates to variables in Application, Server, and Session scopes. --->
<h3>cfapplication Example</h3>
<p>cfapplication defines scoping for a ColdFusion application and enables or disables application and/or session variable storage. This tag is placed in a special file called Application.cfm that automatically runs before any other CF page in a directory (or subdirectory) where the Application.cfm file appears.</p>

<cfapplication name = "ETurtle" 
sessionTimeout = #CreateTimeSpan(0, 0, 0, 60)# 
sessionManagement = "Yes">

<!--- Initialize session and application variables used by E-Turtleneck. ---> 
<cfparam name="application.number" default="1">
<cfparam name="session.color" default= "">
<cfparam name="session.size" default="">

<cfif IsDefined("session.numPurchased") AND IsNumeric(trim(session.cartTotal))>
<!--- Use the application scope for the application variable to prevent race condition. This variable keeps track of total number of turtlenecks sold. --->
   <cflock scope = "Application" timeout = "30" type = "Exclusive">
   <cfset application.number = application.number + session.numPurchased>
   </cflock>
</cfif>

<cfoutput>
E-Turtleneck is proud to say that we have sold #application.number# turtlenecks to date.
</cfoutput>
<!--- End of Application.cfm ---> 

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