cftrace

Description

Displays and logs debugging data about the state of an application at the time the cftrace tag executes. Tracks run-time logic flow, variable values, and execution time. Displays output at the end of the request or in the debugging section at the end of the request; or, in Dreamweaver MX and later, in the Server Debug tab of the Results window.

History

ColdFusion MX: Added this tag.

Syntax

<cftrace  
    var = "variable name" 
    text = "string" 
    type = "format" 
    category = "string" 
    inline = "yes|no" 
    abort = "yes|no"> 
</cftrace>

Note: You can specify this tag’s attributes in an attributeCollection attribute whose value is a structure. Specify the structure name in the attributeCollection attribute and use the tag’s attribute names as structure keys.

Attributes

Attribute	Description	Required	Default
abort	yes: calls a cfabort tag when the tag is executed. no	Optional	no
category	User-defined string that identifies trace groups.	Optional
inline	yes: displays trace code inline on the page in the location of the cftrace tag, in addition to the debugging information output. no	Optional	no
text	User-defined string, which can include simple variables, but not complex variables such as arrays. Outputs to the cflogtext attribute.	Optional
type	Corresponds to the cflogtype attribute; displays an appropriate icon: Information Warning Error Fatal Information	Optional	Information
var	The name of a simple or complex variable to display. Useful for displaying a temporary value, or a value that does not display on any CFM page.	Optional

Usage

You cannot put application code within this tag. (This avoids problems that can occur if you disable debugging.)
This tag is useful for debugging CFML code during application development.
You can display cftrace tag output in the following ways:
As a section in the debugging output
Inline in an application page, and as a section in debugging output. If you specify inline tracing, ColdFusion flushes all output up to the cftrace tag, and displays the trace output when it encounters the tag.
The following is an example of a log file entry:
"Information","web-4","04/08/02","23:21:30", ,"[30 ms (1st trace)] [C:\CFusion\wwwroot\generic.cfm @ line: 9] - [thisPage = /generic.cfm]" "Information","web-0","04/08/02","23:58:58", ,"[5187 ms (10)] [C:\CFusion\wwwroot\generic.cfm @ line: 14] - [category] [thisPage = /generic.cfm] [ABORTED] thisPage " For a complex variable, ColdFusion lists the variable name and the number of elements in the object; it does not log the contents of the variable.

Example

The following example traces a FORM variable that is evaluated by a cfif block:

<cftrace var="FORM.variable" 
    text="doing equivalency check for FORM.variable" 
    category="form_vars" 
    inline="true"> 
<cfif isDefined("FORM.variable") AND #FORM.variable# EQ 1> 
    <h1>Congratulations, you're a winner!</h1> 
<cfelse> 
    <h1>Sorry, you lost!</h1> 
</cfif>

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