This chapter introduces and describes the basic elements of CFML. These elements make CFML a powerful tool for developing interactive web applications. Because CFML is a dynamic application development tool, it has many of the features of a programming language, including the following:
CFML also has a "language within a language," CFScript, which enables you to use a syntax similar to JavaScript for many operations.
This chapter introduces these elements and other basic CFML entities such as comments, data types, escape characters, and reserved words.
The remainder of Part I of this manual provides more detailed information on many of the basic CFML elements. The rest of this manual helps you use these elements effectively in your applications.