Running a background process

minli98 wrote:
> I found a possible solution. It's more a hack than a real solution, but it's
> very simple. It uses cfhttp to connect to the second script and then cut the
> connection after 1 second. The second script should continue to run. However,
> someone said that it's not always reliable.

The old trick was this <cfhttp...> tag with a timeout of zero. This was
the old way to fire off an asynchronous process before the days of
gateways and <cfthread...>.

I found a possible solution. It's more a hack than a real solution, but it's very simple. It uses cfhttp to connect to the second script and then cut the connection after 1 second. The second script should continue to run. However, someone said that it's not always reliable.

# <cfhttp
# url=" http://#CGI.server_name##CGI.script_name#"
# method="get"
# timeout="1"
# />

http://www.bennadel.com/blog/1062-Ask-Ben-Running-ColdFusion-Asynchronously-Caveman-Style.htm

> I am on a shared CF7 hosting with cfschedule disabled. Is there an
> alternative way to tell CF to run a script in the background?

If you can get an async CFML gateway configured, then you can make async CF
requests.

Read up on sendGatwayMessage() -
http://livedocs.adobe.com/coldfusion/8/functions_s_02.html - and the
various other links from that page.

--
Adam

One of the things I like about jQuery (I know this library the best but imagine others work in a similar fashion) is that when you submit a form via a jQuery function, jQuery uses the action attribute of the form tag to determine where it submits *unless* a submit to url is provided in the options object passed into the ajaxForm function.

I haven't tried it before but you should be able to set the form action attribute to one url, which would be used if JS is off, and set another action url in options object that gets passed into the ajax form function

Here's a sample of setting up an HTML form to submit via jQuery (the HTML form would use an alternate action page).
$(document).ready
(
function()
{
var options = {

target: '#formOutput', // target element(s) to be updated with server response
beforeSubmit: showFormRequest, // pre-submit callback
success: showFormResponse, // post-submit callback
resetForm: true,
// other available options:
url: 'htp://domain.com/blah/blah/blah.cfm', // override for form's 'action' attribute
type: 'post', // 'get' or 'post', override for form's 'method' attribute
dataType: 'json' // 'xml', 'script', or 'json' (expected server response type)
//clearForm: true // clear all form fields after successful submit
//resetForm: true // reset the form after successful submit

// $.ajax options can be used here too, for example:
//timeout: 3000
};
// bind form using 'ajaxForm'
$('#myform').ajaxForm(options);
});

Might not be worth the effort of fit into your requirements but wanted to put it out there for you. I have a jQuery-driven CMS I built for a client that I could pull some code samples out for you if that might help.

Cheers,
Craig

Depends on the details. Something I do is to use Cold Fusion to do something and then send some information somewhere. I then have scheduled jobs that react to that information.

Hi, Min,

I do not know of a way offhand to do this in CF7 but you might look into using an Ajax library, such as jQuery, to handle this task for you.

With jQuery (or one of the many other solid Ajax frameworks), you can submit the form data to an XMLHttpRequest, which runs asynchronously in the background. While the XMLHttpRequest is running, you can use jQuery to display a message to the user (a loading icon, add some text to the DOM/page so that the user knows the site is working on their order, and then provide a confirmation screen (or redirect to the transaction complete page) when it's done.

If you haven't used an Ajax library (or Ajax in general), it can be a bit intimidating but it is a great way to improve the user experience. If this might be of help, I can certainly provide an example or two for you on how ColdFusion and jQery work together on processes such as these.

Best,
Craig