cfc_loader

Usage

If you want to have a property on a component populated with arrays of components, you will need to use item_type="path.to.cfc" on your properties.

// example component with a property that is an array of components
component accessors=true {
	property name="id" type="numeric"; // basic
	property name="options" type="array" item_type="com.foo.Option"; // item_type meta data
}

(It's unfortunate that ColdFusion has no way to document the types of items in an array. But, it doesn't. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.)

Example Code

// You should cache your loader.
// But, for this example, it is uncached.
var loader = new com.github.cfchris.cfc_loader.loader();
loader.setLoadersPath("com.generated.loaders");

// Often data come as JSON from APIs
var apiData = '{
	"id": 1,
	"name": "Benchmark Bundle",
	"widgets": [
		{"id": 1, "name": "Benchmark Widget 1"},
		{"id": 2, "name": "Benchmark Widget 2"}
	]
}';

// (option 1) Return a data component (populated from a raw API response)
return loader.load(new test_cfcs.Bundle(), apiData);

// (option 2) Return a data component (populated from a deserialized API response)
return loader.load(new test_cfcs.Bundle(), DeserializeJson(apiData));

That's really it. The loader will handle generating and caching loaders. Loaders are generated for each component with a name containing a "signature" hash. If you add any properties to a component (or any it extends or even update this package), it will automatically regenerate loader components as necessary.

Why?

If you SerializeJson() structs and arrays in ColdFusion/CFML, you will get inconsistent and undesirable results. (Type conversions, strings that can convert to numbers missing quotes, etc)

If you use components with properties with correct types, you will get more consistent SerializeJson() results. (And as a bonus, you have documented your API.)

Where I work we have been using components for a while that are nested types with component properties, etc. We were loading them with a system where all objects extend a BaseValueObject that contains a loadFromStruct() method that dynamically and recursively loads the component and all of its children. But, when we started using them for APIs that respond with deeply nested types, it got very, very slow.

So, I wrote cfc_loader.

License

Copyright (c) 2019 Chris Phillips and Contributors

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at

http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0

Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.