• Home |
• Accessibility |
• Log in

• Home
• Projects
• Blog
• Fun

Running Blue Dragon JE22 under JRun4

The following instructions describe one way to run Blue Dragon under JRun4:

1. Download the ZIP File version (labelled “Any”) J2EE version of Blue Dragon http://www.newatlanta.com/c/products/bluedragon/download/home.
2. Unzip the file into any temporary directory.
3. In the JRun4 administrator (http://localhost:8000/) create a new server called BlueDragon. (I use port 8400).
4. Browse to the new server folder location (…./JRun4/servers/bluedragon) and delete the default.ear folder.
5. Now copy the expand war file folder (something like BlueDragon_webapp_701_352) in your unzipped temporary directory under the …./JRun4/servers/bluedragon directory.
6. Rename the new BlueDragon_webapp_701_352 to BlueDragon-war.
7. In the JRun4 administrator, start the BlueDragon server and then view the BlueDragon-war settings page.
8. Edit the Context Path from “/BlueDragon-war” to “/“.

The Blue Dragon test page should now be available at http://localhost:8400/

A few more steps are required is you want to use the XML CFML Tags and Functions. If you try running a page using XML features of CFML you will get an error message:

“Unrecognized error code: The configured XML parser does not support JAXP 1.3. Please configure the JVM to use a JAXP 1.3 compliant XML parser. If using Sun Microsystems’ JDK 1.5, this can be done by setting the system property javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilderFactory to “com.sun.org.apache.xerces.internal.jaxp.DocumentBuilderFactoryImpl”.“

The following steps will change the JVM’s default XML parser to the one required by Blue Dragon (Assuming you are using JVM 1.5+):

1. In the JRun4 administrator, view the Java VM Settings page.
2. Add the following to the VM Arguments:
3. Restart the BlueDragon server.

Note: This will effect all JRun4 servers, as the JVM settings are shared. Anyone know how to do this on per server basis?

Posted in Miscellaneous | No Comments »

Running Railo under JRun4

The following instructions describe one way to run Railo under JRun4:

1. Download the war File version (Under “Railo Custom”) version of Railo http://www.railo-technologies.com/en/index.cfm?treeID=224.
2. Unzip the file into any temporary directory.
3. In the JRun4 administrator (http://localhost:8000/) create a new server called Railo. (I use port 8200).
4. Browse to the new server folder location (../JRun4/servers/railo) and delete the default.ear folder.
5. Create a …./JRun4/servers/railo/railo-war directory.
6. Change to that directory (cd …/JRun4/servers/railo/railo-war)
   
7. Now expand the war file (something like railo-2.0.1.000.war) to the …./JRun4/servers/railo/railo-war directory using this command: jar -xvf …./railo-2.0.1.000.war
8. In the JRun4 administrator, start the Railo server and then view the Railo-war settings page.
9. Edit the Context Path from “/railo-war” to “/“.

The Railo test page should now be available at http://localhost:8200/

Posted in Miscellaneous | No Comments »

Odd Error using CFFLUSH

Thought I would blog about this, as it wasted almost 2 hours of my time trying to get to the bottom of it.

I was using CFFLUSH on a work project and ColdFusion was returning the following error message:

“You have called cfflush in an invalid location, such as inside a cfquery or cfthread or between a CFML custom tag start and end tag.“

What was confusing, was that there were no CFQUERY, CFTHREAD or Custom Tags in the code!

The problem turned out to be an output=”false” attribute on a component function, which called the function containing the CFFLUSH. This is obvious with hindsight, however the error message sent me on a wild goose chase

Posted in ColdFusion | No Comments »

A Practical Use for ColdFusion 8’s Object Serialization

ColdFusion 8 added the ability for objects to be serialized. Although you can not serialize/un-serialize objects with CFML, you can use underlying Java functions to do so as described by Pete Freitag’s post Serializing CFC’s in ColdFusion 8. In this post a commenter asked whether there is a use-case where this ability would be useful. While contemplating a problem at work, I think I may have found one.

The problem involves building an asynchronous process queue which sits between a “real-time” web service and the system’s database. The web service will be used to import large amounts of data and the queue is required due to the length of time required to process and then store the data in the database. The idea is to store the data, which will be in the form of CFML beans, in an array in application scope and then have a CFTHREAD process the beans into the database.

Where does serialization come in? Well suppose something happens to the server while there are items in the queue. A restart will lose all the data in the queue. Although this is an edge case, the data is critical to the business and cannot be lost. So, when an item is added to the queue it is serialized and stored to the file system. When an item is removed, the serialized file is removed. On start up, any serialized files on the file system are read and the queue is repopulated without data loss.

This is purely theoretical at this point, but I think the idea has enough merit to give it a try.

Posted in ColdFusion | No Comments »

Creating a Server.cfc

This is technique I have been using for a while to handle environmental (development, test, production etc) configuration settings. It mimics the Application.cfc added in ColdFusion 7, creating a Server.cfc shown below.

1. <cfcomponent hint="Server wide Information" output="false">
2.  
3. <!--- PROPERTIES --->
4.  
5. <!--- TODO: Set for each server instance --->
6. <cfset variables.environment = "Development" /> <!--- Development, Test, Staging, Production --->
7.  
8.  
9.  
10. <!--- INIT --->
11.  
12. <cffunction name="init"

13. hint="Initialise the Server information"
14. access="public"
15. returntype="Server"
16. >
17.  
18. <!--- Handle Server Start --->
19. <cfif Not StructKeyExists(server, "Name") OR Not StructKeyExists(server, "Environment")>
20. <cflock scope="server" type="exclusive" timeout="10">
21. <cfif Not StructKeyExists(server, "Name") OR Not StructKeyExists(server, "Environment")>
22.  
23. <!--- Set Server Information --->
24. <cfset server.name = createObject("java", "java.net.InetAddress").getLocalHost().getHostName() />
25. <cfset server.environment = variables.environment />
26.  
27. <!--- call onServerStart --->
28. <cfset onServerStart() />
29.  
30. </cfif>
31. </cflock>
32. </cfif>
33.  
34. <cfreturn this />
35. </cffunction>
36.  
37.  
38. <cffunction name="onServerStart"

39. hint="Initialise the Server information"
40. access="public"
41. returntype="void"
42. >
43.  
44. <!--- TODO: Add any server startup code here --->
45.  
46. </cffunction>
47.  
48. </cfcomponent>
49. Download this code: server.cfc

// Fade Disabled Icon

DisplayObject(this.getChildByName("disabledIcon")).alpha = 0.4;

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

<mx:Button xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"
	icon="@Embed('EditButton.png')"
	label="Edit" creationComplete="init();"
>
        <mx:Metadata>
		[IconFile("EditButton.png")]
	</mx:Metadata>

	<mx:Script>

 	<![CDATA[

		private function init():void
		{
    			// Fade Disabled Icon
			DisplayObject(this.getChildByName("disabledIcon")).alpha = 0.4;
		}

	]]>

 	</mx:Script>

</mx:Button>