How to execute arbitrary CFML stored in a string variable?

I can understand the reluctance to jump through all the hoops of getting a
string, writing it to file, including it, removing the file; but that's
about the only option available as far as doing what you want to do.

Can I recommend you write a custom tag (UDF) which wraps all this up for
you, so you can just write it once and then slap it in your code as needs
must. This'll save some of the horror of having to be undertaking the task
in the first place ;-)

I'd perhaps write the file with a name that is the hash of the code, that
way I could check whether a file with that hash already exists, and simply
include it if it does. This saves the file-write, file-read, re-compile,
execute process that creating the files on the fly will have.


I'd like to add a "me too" to the positions put forward that I'd really
consider thinking twice about pulling code out of the DB. Can you not just
write it to file in the first place, and store a reference to the file in
the DB instead?

--
Adam

You are correct that Evaluate() will handle ColdFusion expressions, and not CFML.

However, keep in mind that you can invoke function calls (UDFs, CFC methods, etc) in a ColdFusion expression. So in-directly, you can dynamically invoke any CFML code you want within the context of an Evaluate() call, so long as the CFML you want to invoke is encapsulated in a UDF or CFC somewhere.

If you really do want to store CFML tags/code in a database and parse it on the fly, you're not going to have much luck I'm afraid. Your only option really will be to write it to a file and <cfinclude> it. Not pretty. If this really is your requirement, consider taking a step back and re-thinking this. There's probably a better way to approach this.

slightly different, write it to a file and use cfinclude to execute it.