ColdFusion and I

Debugging ColdFusion WebSockets

2012-07-26T08:55:00.002-07:00

Debugging ColdFusion websockets is not the easiest things, at least not as easy as using websockets. ColdFusion 10 provides a seamless integration to websockets. It provides it's own messaging layer and client side JS functions to subscribe and publish messages to a web sockets. As CF websockets works Asynchronously that makes debugging even more complicated.

However CF10 websockets messages provides some sort of information. It is a bit difficult for beginners.
Specifically when there is an error message. it is very difficult to determine it is from client side or server side.

Here is a small tool that will help the beginners in CF10 websockets to debug their application(from client side). This tool will enable a CF programmer to see what is going in and out of the websocket at the browser. It also highlights if there is any error.

I have placed this on RiaForge. To start with, copy this folder anywhere in your webroot and run index.cfm
I am testing the final version(v6) of chat application that is available on my devnet article.

Provide the URL of the application you would like to debug. Now you can only debug an application which has same domain as from where you are running this debugger. i.e here debugger is running from localhost, so I can't debug any application running on example.com. I can only debug applications running under localhost.

This will take you to the debug page.

The first half of the debug page will show your application and the bottom part shows the debug information about websocket. The latest debug information goes on the top. There are tabs to see only incoming/outgoing/error/Info messages. In this snapshot the first message was:

{"ns":"coldfusion.websocket.channels","type":"welcome","authKey":"2075AE5B79AE803A351EB9A60652938D","subscribeTo":"","appName":"helloworld"}Thu Jul 26 2012 15:54:12 GMT+0530 (India Standard Time)

Which says it is an outgoing( < is for outgoing message) welcome message and is sent to the server to establish a websocket connection. However at this point of time it is not subscribed to any channel. Go to info tab it shows :

CONNECTED TO COLDFUSION WEBSOCKET

The message at the top indicates it's an incoming message and there is no error in connection(code=0).
Now on the application (upper part of debugger ) I click on I Agree. This authenticates and subscribe to the channel 'world'. As you can see in the Info tab.

Now you are connected to CF websockets and subscribed to channel world. If I again click on 'I Agree'( this again tries to resubscribe client to channel 'world') debugger will show an error message.

Here is the snapshot of error tab.

Likewise you can view all incoming and outgoing messages from your browser.

Note: This tool has some limitations too. If your application is showing images/css which has a relative path then this tool won't work. This tool will try to interpret it as it's own relative. though not tested if you copy contents of 'wsdebug' folder to your application it should work.

Rancho: The Code Coverage tool for ColdFusion

2012-05-24T05:39:00.002-07:00

Code coverage is an essential part of testing, it reflects the completeness of the testing done. Code coverage is instrumental in providing information about how much of the total code is actually tested by the test suite. However code coverage does not guaranty the quality of testing but it reflects the area covered in testing.

Another important point is white box testing and code coverage(functional) are two separate activities. while the former determine the probable inputs and output for a function, the later determine if all lines and branching conditions of the function are executed, in short all paths have been covered or not. There are quiet a bunch of tools available for Java applications. But for ColdFusion applications, till now there is no way to know the code coverage.

This post provides an experimental tool, Rancho, to get code coverage for any ColdFusion application. Rancho can be used as a ColdFusion Builder extension or as an application. Download Rancho as an extension to CFB.

Rancho is the code coverage tool written in CFML for code coverage of CFML application. There are different metrics a code coverage tool can provide(line coverage,functional coverage,decision coverage) but as of now Rancho only provides the line coverage.

How to get code coverage?

There are 3 steps to get the code coverage.

Instrument your CFML application using Rancho.
Run your test suite.
Generate a report of code coverage using Rancho.

Steps 2 and 3 can be iterated if you want to tun your testcases in phases.

Using Rancho as an extension to CFB

Download the Rancho and add it as an extension to CFB. View this article to add an extension to CFB.

Note: Since this project is hosted on Github and it provides project to download as a zip. This zip can not directly be imported to CFB as extension because extension files are one level down. So either rezip at the level of ide_config.xml OR directly download from RIAForge

You can also run Rancho as an application. Download it from here.

STEP 1 - Instrument: Go to the Application folder in CFB navigator you need to instrument. Do a right click and select Rancho -> Instrument

Figure 1: Rancho Instrumentation

This will first take backup of the existing folder and start instrumenting all files in that folder.

Figure 2: Instrumentation Done

Note: Instrumentation is a one time activity. Do not instrument more than once.

STEP 2 - Running test suite: Once instrumentation is done you can proceed to running your testcases for the application instrumented.

STEP 3 - Getting Code Coverage Data: Once you are done with your testing or otherwise you can extract a report of code coverage. From Figure 1 click on Rancho -> Code Coverage or you can directly access http://localhost:8500/Rancho/handlers/coveragegrid.cfm

Figure 3: Code Coverage preview

This will show you the preview of your code coverage, indicating total coverage of application. Also it lists code coverage for individual files. You can further drill down to individual files to see executed and un-executed lines.

Figure 4: Code Coverage details

This shows individual CF statements executed(green) and un-executed CF statements(red).

Configuring Rancho

While instrumenting Rancho adds a trace before each CF statement. Now there could be some statements that can not be traced like as putting a trace before or after could be an issue. also there are some tags for which trace can not be put before e.g or .

To handle this 2 files doNottrace.txt and putTraceAfter.txt are placed at Rancho\handlers\config. Add any tag/end tag which falls in above category. As of now only some tags/end tags have been added. As you find more such tags please update them to the repository.

Limitations

Supports only tags not script, so any CFML code inside will be uncovered.
Multiple level of folders is not supported yet. Instrument and generate report for single folder level at a time.
Instrumentation of single file is not supported. Only folders can be instrumented.
Only line coverage is provided.

Improvements

Rancho is an experimental code coverage tool so there are some improvements required like:

- Support for .

- Multi folder support

- UI improvements

- Fine tuning tags in doNottrace.txt and putTraceAfter.txt

- Enhance Rancho to extend Function and Decision coverage

I have created a github project(I am new to it). Please contribute to it.

PS: You can also run Rancho as an application. Download it from here. Place Rancho in webroot of CF and run index.cfm. Also make sure the folder you are instrumenting has write permissions.

ColdFusion 10: Verity to Solr migration

2012-05-19T04:19:00.000-07:00

Now that ColdFusion 10 is out and with that support for Verity has been dropped. In CF901 both Solr and Verity were supported. But now only Solr search server is available.

If you are migrating from ColdFusion 9.0.1 to ColdFusion 10 you can convert your Verity collections in CF901 to Solr and then migrate to CF10.

If you are still on CF8 (which do not have Solr) and directly migrating to CF10(which do not have Verity), there's no direct way to migrate your verity collections created in CF8 to Solr collection in CF10.

This post provides a tool to convert your Verity collections to Solr. Download this zip from GitHub and follow instructions from readme file.

However there is a difference the way a collection is created and searched. For example, Verity requires language at collection creation time while Solr language is mentioned while indexing. See Solr in ColdFusion9 on how searching is done in Solr.

Searching in Solr

2009-07-09T01:12:00.000-07:00

The syntax of search in Solr is bit different from that in Verity. Verity has different types like- simple, internet and natural. But in ColdFusion9 Solr has two types of search: Standard(default) and Dismax. In addition to this Solr is configurable and other search types can be defined.

In Verity following code can be used to search for documents having 'filmed' or 'filming' :

< cfsearch name="myveritysearch" face="courier new"> collection="myverity" type="explicit" criteria='< WILDCARD>`film*`' >

In Solr type="explicit" is not valid. Default type for Solr is standard and search code is:

< cfsearch name="mysolrsearch" collection="mysolr" criteria="film*">

? :To perform a single character wildcard search
* :To perform a multiple character wildcard search

Note: * or ? can't be used as the first character of a search.

Searching in a particular document(mydoc.html):

< cfsearch name="mysolrsearch" collection="mysolr" criteria="film* AND title:mydoc.html">

NOT searching in a particular document(mydoc.html).:

< cfsearch name="mysolrsearch" collection="mysolr" criteria="-title:mydoc.html">

Fuzzy Search in Solr:

Solr supports fuzzy searches , for example, to search words like roam,foam ctc

< cfsearch name="mysolrsearch" collection="mysolr" criteria="roam~">

Proximity search:
Solr can search two words with a given proximity to each other. e.g. to search "solr" and "spreadsheets" within a specified distance(10 words):

< cfsearch name="mysolrsearch" collection="mysolr" criteria='"solr spreadsheet"~10'>

Searching string:
Solr by default searches for words. To search strings say "ColdFusion Green" Or "Solr search" :

< cfsearch name="mysolrsearch" collection="mysolr" criteria='"ColdFusion Green" OR "Solr search"'>

Another way is to use search type="dismax"
< cfsearch name="mysolrsearch" collection="mysolr" type="dismax" criteria="ColdFusion Green">

Boosting a Term:
Solr provides the relevance level of matching documents based the terms found. To boost a term use the caret,"^" symbol followed by a boost factor.

For example if you are searching for coldfusion and solr and you want "coldfusion" to be more relevent:
< cfsearch name="mysolrsearch" collection="mysolr" criteria="coldfusion^5 solr">

The above will show results having coldfusion first.

Working with Solr: Creating Collections and Indexing them

2009-07-08T02:04:00.000-07:00

Solr in ColdFusion needs some basic code change in creating ,indexing and searching a collection.

Creating Collection:
While creating a collection ColdFusion requires an attribute 'engine' to indentify a collection as Solr or Verity. Default value of 'engine' is verity. Defining the attribute 'engine' is one time activity, for indexing and search ColdFusion will automatically identify the collection type.

< cfcollection action="create"

collection="mysolr"
key="#expandpath('.')#"
type="path"
engine="solr">

This will create a solr collection named 'mysolr'. also there is no need to define language and categories at the time of creation of collection,language can be defined at the time of indexing a collection.

Indexing Collection:

Indexing a Solr collection is similar to Verity.

< cfquery name="getCourses" datasource="cfdocexamples">
SELECT * FROM COURSES
< /cfquery>


< cfindex action="Update"
      query="getCourses"
      collection="mysolr"
      type="Custom"
      key="Course_ID"
      title="Courses"
      body="Course_ID,Descript"
      custom1="Course_Number">

For indexing a Solr collection in some other languages than English, language attribute can be defined in <> tag.

Solr supports following languages:

• Danish

• Dutch

• Finnish

• French

• German

• Italian

• Norwegian

• Spanish

• Portugese

• Russian

• Swedish

• Chinese

• Japanese

• Korean

• Czech

• Greek

• Thai

However, Solr supports indexing documents in any language. If the document has a language (for example, Arabic) not listed above, it can still index the content(as english), but stemming will not be available in search.

Solr in Coldfusion9

2009-07-02T22:26:00.000-07:00

ColdFusion9 now provides support for Solr search engine as an alternate to Verity. Solr is an enterprise search server based on Lucene java search library. Solr provides features like indexing searching ,caching, and a web Administrator interface. In ColdFusion Solr will run as a seperate service on a server Jetty. Solr can be installed along with ColdFusion and also as a seperate installer.

Configuring Solr:

On Administrator page ColdFusion provides interface to configure Solr. Log on to Administrator page -> Data & Services-> Solr Server. You can configure Solr Home path and port on this page. By default Solr runs on port 8983. On your browser go to

http://localhost:8983/solr

This is the Admin page for Solr, this will show you all solr collections and information about them. Any collection can be searched from here also.

If port 8983 is already blocked then Solr can be configured to run on different port by following steps:

1. Go to the location where Solr is installed (eg: c:\Coldfusion\solr). Go to folder etc and open the file jetty.xml.
2. Now search for port 8983 and replace all with new port say 8984.
3. Now log on to admin page->solr server->Show advance settings and change the Solr Admin port to 8984 and submit.
4. Restart Solr services.(Go to location where Solr is installed and run ./cfsolr restart)