I could see the use in certain cases (such as the one you find yourself in now). But generally it's as you said, if I'm dumping a resultset, it's to see what a query I'm keeping is doing.

Not often. You generally have the query in your code already and need it. I am the one that requested cfdump at a Meet the Experts at MAX, can't recall if that was Allaire or Macromedia days.....

have you tried cfdbinfo

Todd Sharp suggested this in IM, but since he signed off, I'm going to pretend it was my idea. This works too:

<cfdump var="#new Query(sql='select * from tblblogentries').execute().getResult()#" top=5>

MikeG - no - because I really need the data + structure.

Why don't you just query the database directly?

Or, if you did want to do it in CF, I'd rather have:
<cfdbpreview table="thetable" top=5 />

Um... "I'm working on an application where I don't (yet) have access to the database schema."

I don't understand that statement. If CF can access it, what's stopping you from accessing it?

Eh? CF can access it because it has the DSN info. I don't have CF Admin access, and even if I did, the password is encrypted.

To be more specific: you must have a datasource setup for CF to access it, right?

Which means anything else with a JDBC driver can use the same settings as the datasource.

So use something like SQL Explorer ( http://sqlexplorer.org ) and you can query directly, with existing settings.

Is there something I'm missing? :/

No CF Admin access. :)

Ok, well this is the point where I'd get whoever is in control of that access to do one of:
a) provide the password
b) setup a user
c) provide a current db diagram

Trying to work against a database without knowledge of what it contains is just crazy.

Ok, you're kinda missing the point here. ;) Yes, it's best to use a db tool. My point was - in cases where you need to do some quick testing, I've done cfquery/cfdump before. Either way - we all dev differently. :)

I didn't miss that point, I just don't understand accepting bad conditions. :P

If I was stuck with them regardless, I'd create a cfdbpreview tag to do the query, sql, and dumping for me in one short command.

I have a keyboard shortcut that's defined as: {Ctrl+C},{End},{Enter},<cfdump var="#{Ctrl+V}#">{Enter}<cfabort>

I know you are interested in the data as well, but for the schema part, fastest way to output that stuff is to query the information_schema tables, which outline all of you database metadata. Sp_help is a time saver too.

My favorite way of getting db info when I don't have direct access to the database via Enterprise Manager etc. :)

Get tables from the database (MSSQL):

SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.Tables
WHERE Table_Type = 'BASE TABLE'
ORDER BY Table_Name

And then you loop through your tables and get columns

SELECT * FROM INFORMATION_SCHEMA.Columns
WHERE Table_Name = <cfqueryparam cfsqltype="CF_SQL_VARCHAR" value="#ii#">
ORDER BY ORDINAL_POSITION

@jaana,

What's the point of doing query 1 and looping over it if query 2 already has the table name in it? :-) Is it because you want to limit the result set to tables only and exclude view? In that case you're better off joining the 2 tables on table_Name.

@Tof,
These are 2 queries on 2 different pages, I just brought them both in to the post. I use the first query in a dropdown to do filtering on the fly and only showing certain data on the page. Old code that I haven't altered in years. Yes you can have just a single query with a join, this is just something I've had running for a long time.

@Psenn - don't forget you can do <cfdump var="..." abort>

Umm, no. While I find that it would be tempting and on a first glance it seems very convenient to querydump or dumpquery a recordset using cfdump only, talking in terms of separation of concerns I don't believe that ColdFusion should provide this feature. Cfdump would also have to accept additional attributes like "database", "dbtype", "username", "password" to fulfill this task.

As @John said, usually you have the query somewhere in your code already. So I think I can live very well with cfdump only dumping out vars that already exist in the code.

"I don't have CF Admin access, and even if I did, the password is encrypted. "

Don't forget about this little backdoor (saved me a lot of trouble the last time I had to migrate an inherited CF server)
http://paulalkema.com/post....

Taking the <cfdump ... abort> idea (i.e. quite often you'll want to abort straight after a dump), what about reversing the 'dump point' (or for me putting it in a natural place), by having the ability to do <cfquery name="qBlah" dump>. Or, for more control, <cfquery name="qBlah" dump abort brewUp>.

Personally I'd rather clutter up cfdump with a bunch of attributes since it's a multipurpose debug tool. :)

Ray, doesn't the IDE you use allow you to view datasources? I am still an old Homesite+ hold out. The datasource tab allows you to look through the tables based on the CF server's datasources. I hope CF Builder has that too?

@John: Yep, it does. If you have CF Admin or RDS access.

I've been monkeying around with the idea of a simple dumpQuery() function (in my base.cfc) with the ability to dump any query based on a URL variable. It would only work if session.isDebugMode=true and you know the query name (and, of course, you've gotten around to adding the function to the query code). I'm thinking it would be super-duper helpful when trying to debug on production boxes (where you can't replicate the error on dev, of course) to display debug information without having to edit code.

What we need in the next version of ColdFusion is a way to make instantaneous communications easier (ala node.js). ColdFusion was the early adopter of database html. Now we need the makers of ColdFusion make event broadcasting easy.

What exactly do you mean by instantaneous communications? Sounds like something already covered by LCDS or Blaze, which plays well with ColdFusion.

This video
http://www.bennadel.com/blo...
has been haunting me. I realize that this is the future of the web. It's the next Ajax!
So that's what I mean by instantaneous communications.

This is no slight to NodeJS - but you can do this with Blaze/LCDS and CF as well.