A ColdFusion application can send an outgoing message to the event gateway in either of the following ways:
cfreturn tag in the listener CFC's listener method
SendGatewayMessage function
The first method is useful to automatically respond to incoming messages. Some complex applications that respond to incoming messages might use the SendGatewayMessage function either in place or in addition to the return value.
Some event gateway types also use a GatewayHelper object to send information to external resources. For example, the ColdFusion MX XMPP and Lotus Sametime instant messaging event gateways provide a GatewayHelper object that can manage buddy lists, and set configuration and status information on the instant messaging server. For more information on the GatewayHelper object, see Using the GatewayHelper object. For more information on the instant messaging GatewayHelper object, see Sample IM message handling application.
The example code in Example event gateway CFC shows the use of a listener return value, and indicates how event gateways can require different data in the return structure to send equivalent messages.