ColdFusion 4.0 Primer
Basic Database Setup
When creating your database there are some things you should know. First of all never include a space in your field names. This will cause problems later. Second never name a field name using a reserved keyword such as 'text' or 'date' this will also cause problems. Finally you must correctly specify the field datatype. What follows is a list of datatypes and what is commonly used to input into them.
| DataType | Details | Assoc. HTML Form Types |
| Text | 255 Character Limit | Radio, Select, Text, Password |
| Number | Number Only | Radio, Select, Text, Password |
| Date/Time | Date or Time(mm/dd/yy) | Radio, Select, Text |
| Yes/No | True or False Value | Checkbox |
| AutoNumber | Automatically Numbers Rows | None |
| Currency | Formats for Currency | Radio, Select, Text |
| Memo | Text without limit | Textarea |
There are some notes on the above table. First of all The autonumber datatype is perfect for numbering articles. Everytime a new article is added it will simply generate an ID for it which can be used for a variety of purposes since each article will have a unique ID. The second note is that the memo datatype does have a limit, however it is so large you will likely never reach it.
ColdFusion Database Integration
Now that you know the basics of what you need to create a database integrated website it is time to put everything together.
Create a Database named Friends, and a table within it named Friends. Create the following Fields and Datatypes:
FirstName - Text LastName - Text Age - Number FriendID - AutoNumber Sex - Text FavMovie - Text FavColor - Text Car - Text Comments - Memo
Then fill in the appropriate values for a number of people. Upload it to your server and tell your Server Admin to create a DSN named "Friends" for it using Microsoft Access Drivers.
Site Categories
Recent Blog Posts
