The ColdFusion Process
Unlike programming environments requiring an application to be coded entirely in Java or C++, then compiled and deployed, the ColdFusion environment is based on pages with embedded server-side scripts. ColdFusion thus functions as a Web page preprocessor, allowing sophisticated commands to be build right into a Web document.

ColdFusion pages are plain text files that look much like HTML, but bear a .cfm file extension rather than the familiar .htm.


ColdFusion Application Process

1. User clicks a 'submit' button on a form or a hypertext link on a page; user's Web browser sends an HTTP request to the Web server via the Internet or on an intranet.
2. Web server passes the page to the ColdFusion server through an API (Application Programmers Interface).
3. ColdFusion reads the data and processes the page's CFML. Based on the CFML, the server interacts with the relevant database.
4. ColdFusion dynamically generates an HTML Web page for return to the Web server.
5. HTML page is returned to the user's browser by the Web server.

It should be noted that non-ColdFusion coding is left intact. ColdFusion therefore is compatible with any and all technologies including Java, JavaScript, ActiveX, and dHTML.

For exchanging data between servers and between servers and browsers, CF uses a technology called Web Distributed Data Exchange . Developed by Allaire, WDDX automatically translates data in and out of XML for easy transference between systems. (See FAQs for more information about WDDX.)