In addition to the <CFLOOP> enhancements, we've also added lots of new file i/o functions that you can use to access and manipulate files directly. The new functions include:

• FileClose()
• FileCopy()
• FileDelete()
• FileIsEOF()
• FileMove()
• FileOpen()
• FileRead()
• FileReadBinary()
• FileReadLine()
• FileSetAccessMode()
• FileSetAttribute()
• FileSetLastModified()
• FileWrite()
• GetFileInfo()
• IsImageFile()
• IsPDFFile()

ColdFusion 8 Makes Obtaining Database and Table Info Easy
This feature was first demonstrated at a usergroup presentation in Connecticut: a new tag in ColdFusion 8 named <CFDBINFO> that returns information about databases (and data sources, and tables, and columns, and stored procedures, and more). This first code snippet shows how to obtain a list of tables in a specified data source (using the default database):

<cfdbinfo type="tables" datasource="myDSN" name="tables">

To get column details you can do the following:

<cfdbinfo type="columns" datasource="myDSN" table="myTables" name="columns">

This would return a query containing column names, type, size, default values, whether it allows NULL values, key associations, and more.

As you can see, <CFDBINFO> accepts a TYPE attribute that tells it what information you want, and the following types are supported:

• columns: Returns column details for a specific table.
• dbnames: Returns the databases in a specified data source.
• foreignkeys: Returns foreign key name information, including the associated primary key, and delete and update rules.
• index: Returns index specifics, including column details, page usage, and whether or not the index is unique.
• procedures: Returns available stored procedures.
• tables: Returns the names of tables within a specific database.
• version: Returns database drive version details.

Multi-Threaded Application Development in ColdFusion 8
ColdFusion MX7 introduced the ability to asynchronously spawn ColdFusion requests using an event gateway. While many take advantage of this capability, it has some significant limitations, the biggest of which is that threads can only be spawned; there is no way to monitor spawned threads or wait for them to finish. (The other limitation is that the functionality is only available in ColdFusion Enterprise.)

ColdFusion 8 provides far more sophisticated multi-threading capabilities via the new <CFTHREAD> tag. This tag is used to perform several actions:

• JOIN causes the current thread to wait until one or more specified threads have finished processing.
• RUN creates a new thread that starts processing immediately.
• SLEEP makes another thread pause for a specified number of milliseconds.
• TERMINATE kills another thread.

There are lots of use cases for this new functionality, but at a minimum there are two primary usage scenarios:

• Many requests process user submissions, for example, a user uploaded file. The way most ColdFusion applications work today is that the file is processed on the server (parsing it, converting it, saving it, etc.) while the user waits. But in truth, there is no reason users should have to wait for your application to finish its processing. A better user experience would be to receive the file in the action page, spawn a new thread to actually process it, and return control back to the user instantly. This creates a far more responsive user experience.
• Applications often have to perform multiple operations (perhaps updating database rows, writing log entries, generating an e-mail, firing server-side HTTP requests, and more). Most ColdFusion applications perform these tasks sequentially, one after the other, and then return to the user when complete. But if the various operations are not actually dependent on each other, you could spawn a thread for each, having them execute concurrently and, if necessary, wait until they are complete to continue processing. The result is a faster application, as multiple operations are being performed concurrently.

The code to spawn a thread is very simple:

<!--- Use a separate thread to perform file processing --->
<cfthread action="run" name="threadFile" file="#myFile#">
    <cffile file="#ATTRIBUTES.file#" ...>
</cfthread>

Here a thread named "threadFile" is spawned. An argument (the file to be processed) is passed to <CFTHREAD>, and so that attribute is available within the thread in the ATTRIBUTES scope.

Within threads there are several important scopes. Any locally defined variables are implicitly thread local. THREAD is a special scope (a sub-scope of VARIABLES) that is available to all threads spawned by a single parent. ATTRIBUTES is used to access any variables passed as attributes to <CFTHREAD>.