CFSCHEDULE  
Description

Provides a programmatic interface to the ColdFusion scheduling engine. Can run a CFML page at scheduled intervals, with the option to write the page output to a static HTML page. This feature enables you to schedule pages that publish data, such as reports, without waiting while a database transaction is performed to populate the page.

 
Category

Variable manipulation tags

 
Syntax
<cfschedule 
   action = "update"
   task = "taskname"
   operation = "HTTPRequest"
   file = "filename"
   path = "path_to_file"
   startDate = "date"
   startTime = "time"
   url = "URL"
   port = "port_number"
   publish = "yes" or "no"
   endDate = "date"
   endTime = "time"
   interval = "seconds"
   requestTimeOut = "seconds"
   username = "username"
   password = "password"
   proxyServer = "hostname"
   proxyPort = "port_number">
   proxyUser = "username"
   proxyPassword = "password"
   resolveURL = "yes" or "no"
 
<cfschedule 
   action = "delete" 
   task = "TaskName">
 
<cfschedule 
   action = "run" 
   task = "TaskName">
 
See also

cfcookie, cfparam, cfregistry, cfsavecontent, cfset

 
History

ColdFusion MX 6.1: Changed the way intervals are calculated. The day length now reflects changes between standard and daylight saving times. The month length is now the calendar month length, not four weeks. The scheduler handles leap years correctly.

 
Usage

This tag and the ColdFusion MX Administrator Scheduled task page schedule ColdFusion tasks. Tasks that you add or change using this tag are visible in the Administrator. You can disable this tag in the Administrator Sandbox/Resource security page. This tag's success or failure status is written to the schedule.log file in the cf_root/logs directory (cf_webapp_root/WEB-INF/cfusion/logs in the multiserver and J2EE configurations).

When you create a task, you specify the URL of the ColdFusion page to execute, the date, time and frequency of execution, and whether to publish the task output to a HTML file. If the output is published, you specify the output file path and file.

If you schedule a job to run monthly on any date in the range 28-31, the scheduler does the following:

  • If you schedule a monthly job to run on the last day of a month, the scheduled job will run on the last day of each month. For example, if you schedule a monthly job to start on January 31, it will run on January 31, February 28 or 29, March 31, April 30, and so on.
  • If you schedule a monthly job to run on the 29th or 30th of the month, the job will run on the specified day of each month for 30 or 31-day months, and the last day of February. For example, if you schedule a monthly job to start on January 30, the job will run on January 30, February 28 or 29, March 30, April 30, and so on.

If you schedule a job to run once, the starting time is in the past, and the task has not yet run, it runs immediately. If you schedule a recurring job with a start time in the past, ColdFusion schedules the job to run on the next closest interval in the future.

The Scheduler configuration file, cf_root\lib\neo-cron.xml contains all scheduled events, as individual entries.

 
Example
<h3>cfschedule Example</h3>
<!--- This read-only example schedules a task. 
      To run the example, remove the comments around the code 
      and change the startDate, startTime, url, file, and path attributes
      to appropriate values. --->
<!--- 
<cfschedule action = "update"
   task = "TaskName" 
   operation = "HTTPRequest"
   url = "http://127.0.0.1/playpen/history.cfm"
   startDate = "8/7/03"
   startTime = "12:25 PM"
   interval = "3600"
   resolveURL = "Yes"
   publish = "Yes"
   file = "sample.html"
   path = "c:\inetpub\wwwroot\playpen"
   requestTimeOut = "600">
--->
ACTION  
  Required
 
  • delete: deletes the specified task .
  • update: updates an existing task or creates a new task, if one with the name specified by the task attribute does not exist.
  • run: executes the specified task.
TASK  
  Required
 

Name of the task.
OPERATION  
  Required if action = "update"
 

Operation that the scheduler performs. Must be HTTPRequest.
FILE  
  Required if publish = "Yes"
 

Name of the file in which to store the published output of the scheduled task.

PATH  
  Required if publish = "Yes"
 

Path to the directory in which to put the published file.
STARTDATE  
  Required if action = "update"
 

Date on which to first run the scheduled task.

STARTTIME  
  Required if action = "update"
 

Time at which to run the scheduled of task starts.

URL  
  Required if action = "update"
 

URL of the page to execute.

PORT  
  Optional
 
Default value: "80"

Port to use on the server that is specified by the url parameter. If resolveURL = "yes", retrieved document URLs that specify a port number are automatically resolved, to preserve links in the retrieved document. A port value in the url attribute overrides this value.
PUBLISH  
  Optional
 
Default value: "No"
  • Yes: saves the result to a file.
  • No
ENDDATE  
  Optional
 

Date when scheduled task ends.

ENDTIME  
  Optional
 

Time when scheduled task ends (seconds).
INTERVAL  
  Required if action = "update"
 

Interval at which task is scheduled:

  • number of seconds
  • once
  • daily
  • weekly
  • monthly
REQUESTTIMEOUT  
  Optional
 

Can be used to extend the default timeout period.
USERNAME  
  Optional
 

Username, if URL is protected.
PASSWORD  
  Optional
 

Password, if URL is protected.
PROXYSERVER  
  Optional
 

Host name or IP address of a proxy server.
PROXYPORT  
  Optional
 
Default value: "80"

Port number to use on the proxy server.
PROXYUSER  
  Opt
 

User name to provide to the proxy server.
PROXYPASSWORD  
  Opt
 

Password to provide to the proxy server.
RESOLVEURL  
  Optional
 
Default value: "No"
  • Yes: resolves links in the output page to absolute references.
  • No