MACROMEDIA ColdFusion MX, Develop Manual

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272 Chapter 13: Designing and Optimizing a ColdFusion Application
You can divide your logical web application into multiple ColdFusion applications by using
multiple Application.cfm pages with different application names. Alternatively, you can use
multiple Application.cfm pages that specify the same application name, but have different
common code, for different subsections of your application.
The directory trees in the following figure show two approaches to implementing an application
framework:
•
In the example on the left, a company named Web Wonders, Inc. uses a single Application.cfm
file installed in the application root directory to process all application page requests.
•
In the example on the right, Bandwidth Associates uses the settings in individual
Application.cfm files to create individual ColdFusion applications at the departmental level.
Only the Products application pages are processed using the settings in the root
Application.cfm file. The Consulting, Marketing, and Sales directories each have their own
Application.cfm file.
Creating the Application.cfm page
The Application.cfm page defines application-level settings and functions such as the following:
•
Application name
•
Client-, application-, and session-variable variable management options
•
Page processing settings
•
Default variables, data sources, style settings, and other application-level constants