coldfusion problem about onRequest method in Application.cfc

[YouSui]

hi everyone, i was blocked by a coldfusion problem, any suggestions
are appreciated. now lemme decribe my problem.

i have an Application.cfc in my website root, the content in it is as
follows:

<cfcomponent output="false">
<cffunction name="onRequest" returnType="void">
<cfargument name="thePage" type="string" required="true">
<cfinclude template="#arguments.thePage#">
</cffunction>
</cfcomponent>

and also i have a cfm template of which the name is test.cfm, it's
content is listed as follows:

<cfdump var="#variables.this#"><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br />
<cfdump var="#this#">

now if you request the test.cfm, everything is ok, but when i delete
the onRequest method in Application.cfc and request test.cfm again, it
complaints that "Element THIS is undefined in VARIABLES. ", i don't
know why, can anybody explain it? great thanks.

ps:

you can add as many functions into Application.cfc, such as
onSessionStart, onSessionEnd, onApplicationStart, onApplicationEnd...,
but if there is not a onRequest method, you request test.cfm and get
error. i just don't know why.

[Kevan Stannard]

YouSui, no idea why "this" is not set when onRequest() is not present, but if you need access to your application object you are probably better off doing something like this:

<cffunction name="onApplicationStart" returnType="boolean" output="false">

    <cfset application.app = this>

    <cfreturn true>

</cffunction>

And in your test.cfm

<cfdump var="#application.app#">

2009/7/9 YouSui <you...@gmail.com>

[Alpino, Justin]

Hi YouSui,

 

The reason why "this" doesn't exist when you remove the onRequestStart() method is because your 'test.cfm' is no longer being executed within the context of the (application) CFC. The <cfinclude> in the onRequest() method enables 'test.cfm' to reference any of the internal/private or publicly accessible attributes of the CFC.

Justin

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[rex]

The VARIABLES scope is the default scope for an unscoped variable, and
is shared with the cfincluded page that is called by the onRequest
method. The THIS scope only exists in a CFC or in a method of the CFC.
Since the cfinclude is called in a method, then the THIS scope is
available in the cfincluded page.

When there is no onRequest method, the page is just executed, and the
called page, test.cfm, does not have access to any of the cfc variables,
so VARIABLES scope is empty, and the THIS scope does not exist.