Webmaster Forum / ColdFusion / Getting Started / August 2006

The answer lies in your application.cfc(cfm) file, but my guess is that
reference is the name assigned to an object using  <cfobject> or replace
object.  selSearchVar() is a function in the cfc that was used to create the
object.

request is a special variable scope.  If you google "coldfusion request scope"
you will get a more detailed answer than I am willing to type.

Looks like the developer created an object called "reference" and assigned to
the request scope, and this object has a method called selSearchVar(). The
return value for selSearchVar() is being set to the local variable "VarResult".

You can introspect the state of the variables with the <cfdump> tag to see
what value they hold

<cfdump var="#VarResult#">

Will show the value of VarResult.

<cfdump var="#request.reference#">

Will show the structure of the "reference" object.