ColdFusion applications and Exponential #

Adobe ColdFusion is an application runtime, not a content management system: every ColdFusion site stores its content in its own way, usually in a relational database reached through a datasource, sometimes in files or in hand-made .cfm pages. So the migration reads that database and those files directly. Nothing about ColdFusion's own features was checked for this page; the steps below do not depend on them.

Migration hub · Checklist · Other applications and databases

1. Find the content #

1. The datasource: the ColdFusion administrator names the database each datasource points at (often SQL Server, MySQL or Oracle). Ask for a copy of that database, and the schema.
2. The queries: search the code for the queries that build the public pages; they tell you which tables and columns are content, and how pages are put together.
3. Files: uploaded images and documents, and .cfm pages whose text is written in the page itself (those are read like static HTML, from the rendered output).

2. Move it #

Follow Other applications and databases: one SQL query per content type into JSON or CSV rows with remote ids (cf-<table>-<id>), HTML converted, files imported first, then the content, then the relations. Exponential's importers and the script skeleton do the writing.

3. Addresses #

ColdFusion addresses usually carry the page and its parameters: /news.cfm?id=123, /index.cfm?page=about. Query strings never reach Exponential's URL aliases, so redirect them in the web server from a table (id to new address), generated by the import (checklist, 4). Search-engine-friendly paths, if the application had them, become redirecting custom aliases.

4. Users #

Password storage in a custom application is whatever the developers chose. Standard PHP password_hash() values can be verified by Exponential; anything else (plain hashes, custom salting) means password resets (mapping, 6).

5. The way back #

From Exponential to a ColdFusion application: export with xrowextract to CSV or JSON (leaving Exponential) and load it into the application's tables.

6. Checklist #

• To do: Database copy and schema; the queries behind the public pages read.
• To do: Files and hand-written .cfm content listed.
• To do: Rows exported per content type with remote ids; imported in dependency order.
• To do: .cfm? addresses redirected in the web server; tested.

This page is part of the Exponential documentation and is free documentation under the GNU Free Documentation License 1.3 or any later version (the license of this documentation).