Webmaster Forum / ColdFusion / Advanced Techniques / May 2005

Hi guys,

I'm trying to build a diagram of how Coldfusion works and it suddenly dawned
on me that I'm not 100% sure. None of my doorstoppers (average size of a
computer book these days is half a tree) have a model that explains it either.
Anyway here is my erm ... best guess. Can you let me know if I'm way off base.

Cheers Peter (aka lad4bear)

1) Web use requests page
2) Webserver checks the type of page being requested. If its a .cfm it passes
the request to application server for processing
3) Coldfusion checks to see if a compiled version of the page exists.
4) If it does, Coldfusion execute the servlet (?)
5) Coldfusion sends output to the webserver which in returns send the output
to the web users browser.
6) If it does not exist, Coldfusion parses the tags and uses this to write a
servlet which is then compiled and executeed. Flow returns to 5

Are Coldfusion and Application Server synonymous. I know the Markup language
is a entity in its own right but is Coldfusion somehow independant of the
Application server and if so, what is its role?

Cheers, Peter (aka lad4bear)