Jared Rypka-Hauer, Lead ColdFusion Developer, Minneapolis, MN

Part of the aforementioned conversation on the CFUG list was how cfinclude works. Does it require a relative path? Does an absolute path require a mapping? Will it use a physical path? Will our next first lady be Bill Clinton? Oops, OK, off topic there... sorry.

Anyway... here's the scoop:

Cfinclude works fine with an absolute (or webroot-relative) path, with or without a mapping, provided that the entire directory structure in question exists within the webroot. So, given that "/" = "c:\inetpub\wwwroot" and / contains a folder called modelglue, and that contains modelglue.cfm, the include:

<cfinclude template="/modelglue/modelglue.cfm" />

will work just fine.

If, however, modelglue is located at "c:\wwwroot\external" then you're going to have to use the Administrator to create a "/modelglue" mapping that points to "c:\wwwroot\external\modelglue" in order for the above include to work.

Any other relative path will work, like ./foo.cfm or ../../myPage.cfm, PROVIDED that the path traversed by the recursion markers (fancy words for dot-slash and dot-dot-slash) doesn't lead outside the webroot... because cfinclude always looks for whatever you're requesting INSIDE the webroot... it can't go outside that sandbox.

There ya have it folks... I'd absolutely hate for the relatives to get physical with any disagreements here, so I've put it online for everyone to see plainly.

Yeah, even I thought that was pretty lame. Sorry. :(

Laterz!

I thought it was pretty funny, myself. Good on ya. :-)

As for the observation, it was a surprise for me, as I said on the list, so good for you for sharing it with others. Again, hopefully the docs will be updated to correct it (as they do carry on the misinformation.) I confirmed that you don't need a mapping in either CFMX 6.1 or 7.

The "/" mapping in CF is the reason most people have a large number of CF Mappings. I have no CF mappings, and rarely use them for any project, even on servers with multiple virtual hosts. The reason for this is I immediately delete the "/" mapping on the CF install and use an IIS virtual directory for the CFIDE folder. You can control security via IIS, or simply make CF look at another directory for the ColdFusion scripts.

Doing this allows me to use mappings like
<cfinclude template="/common/whateverfile.cfm" /> for any site on the server without having to worry about conflicts or creating CF mappings.

Aside from enabling the CFIDE directory, I can't think of a single reason to use the "/" mapping in CF anyway. Anyone have any feedback on this?

In CF 6 and 6.1, the server came with a / mapping by default, presumably to "assist" people in finding their ColdFusion webroot. Since then, (Backstone and later) that default has been dropped. The only default, mandatory mapping in CFMX is now /CFIDE, which can't be changed or moved.

It was a good day when they removed the default / mapping from the server... a good day indeed.

B+l+ackstone... I'm not sure what a Backstone is, but if it gives massages I'm all about it.

I hadn't realized until you just mentioned it that it was removed from 7... but that makes sense as I remember looking for it on my last install and not finding it, wondering what was wrong then just shrugging it off. Yay!

Yeah, they pulled it, I think because it was causing far too many issues and solving far too few.

Thanks goodness!

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