Question

Is there a way through the brasiers like firebug or another browser plugin to do traces or log console from a cfc file.

I’m completely new to CF so sorry if this seems like a stupid question.

Answer 1

There is a cftrace tag that will allow you to log output to the console, among other spots in your application and development environment.

<cftrace category="init data" type="Information" var="myvartooutput" />

Calling this tag will output the relevant content in a few places:

1. The console in ColdFusion Builder, if you are using that IDE
2. In Dreamweaver, the Adobe docs mention a server debug tab/view (I don’t use DW, so am not sure)
3. At the end of the request in the debug output
4. In cftrace.log, which is in your log directory (/COLDFUSION/INSTALL/DIR/logs/cftrace.log)

You can also use the tag cflog to write data to one of the standard log files or you may choose to have it write the desired data to a custom log file.

<cflog file="customlog" application="no" text="Output #somevar#!" />

If “customlog” does not exist, CF will create it for you (in the same location noted above).

Hope that helps!

EDIT: I offered this more of an alternative way to using to Firebug … if you want the logs/traces but were not necessarily wed to a browser/plug-in.