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Combining the ColdFusion Form and Action Pages
by Ron Kurtus (revised 3 July 2001)
The common way to submit forms in ColdFusion is to use a Form Page, where you enter or select data, and an Action Page, where the result is displayed.
By using the <cfif> tag with the IsDefined function, you can combine those two pages into one.
Questions you may have include:
- What is the two page method?
- How do you combine pages?
- What actually happens when you do this?
This lesson will answer those questions.
Two page method
The common way to submit forms in ColdFusion is to use two pages.
Form page
First, you have a Form Page, where the user can input information and click a Submit button.
<cfform method="post" action="actionpage.cfm">
<p>Hello</p>
<input type="submit" name="Submit">
</cfform>
<cfform method="post" action="actionpage.cfm">
<p><b>To:</b>
<cfinput name="email_addr" type="text" size="45" required="yes" message="Email address required" border="1" />
</p>
<p><b>From:</b>
<cfinput name="email_addr" type="text" size="45" required="yes" message="Email address required" border="1" />
</p>
<p><b>Subject:</b>
<cfinput type="text" name="subject" maxlength="30" required="yes" message="Subject Required" />
</p>
<p><b>Message:</b></p>
<p>
<textarea name="message" cols="70" rows="10"> </textarea>
</p>
<p><b>Your name:</b>
<cfinput name="fname" type="text" maxlength="30">
</p>
<input name="submit" type="submit" value="Send Email" />
</td>
</cfform>
Action page
The information is then sent to an Action Page, where the material sent from the form can be used to query a database for more information, to insert new information into the database, or perform other tasks.
Some examples are:
- Fill out an employment application form and submit it. The Action Page then enters that information in a database.
Combining pages
A clever way to perform both tasks on one page is to use a <CFIF> tag along with the IsDefined function to display what would be on the second page, provided the form has been submitted. The coding would be as follows:
<BODY>
<CFIF NOT IsDefined("form.submit")>
(Place Form Page material here. The name for the Submit button is NAME="submit".)
<CFELSE>
(Note that you could use "form.variable", for any variable sent in your submission.)
(Place material that would be in the Action Page here.)
</CFIF>
What happens
When you first open the page, <CFIF IsDefined("form.submit")> does not apply, so the material after <CFELSE> displays.
After filling in the form and clicking the Submit button, the page refreshes and the <CFIF IsDefined("form.submit")> section is activated, while the <CFELSE> section is hidden.
The IsDefined function checks if the "submit" variable (or other defined variable) has been sent from the form. If it has, then the Action Page material can be displayed and action taken.
Summary
This method can reduce the number of pages you have in an application and can make debugging the code easy to do.
If you are reliable, you are valuable
Resources and references
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Questions and comments
Do you have any questions, comments, or opinions on this subject? If so, send an email with your feedback. I will try to get back to you as soon as possible.
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combining_form_and_action_pages.htm
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