Question

Problem: When requesting the WSDL for a CFC, I get the following error: Variable FORM is undefined. It happens in this line of code, in the OnRequestStart method in application.cfc

<cfif structKeyExists(form,'resetappvars')>
    <cfset OnApplicationStart() />
</cfif>

If I request a specific method, it works fine. I have considered using cfparam to create a default form struct if none exists, but that seems like an ugly hack and I worry it will actually create the form struct in the variables or this scope of the CFC. Maybe this is a legitimate bug as well?

Note: This only happens when I request the WSDL, if I invoke a method directly – the code executes as expected without problems.

Update: Application.cfc code sample – just add any CFC to your app and request it with ?wsdl to see the issue. This has been tested (and failed) on ColdFusion 7 and ColdFusion 8.

<cfcomponent output="false">

    <cffunction name="OnApplicationStart" access="public" returntype="boolean" output="false" hint="Fires when the application is first created.">
        <cfset application.dsn = "my_dsn" />
        <cfreturn true />
    </cffunction>

    <cffunction name="OnRequestStart" access="public" returntype="boolean" output="false" hint="Fires at first part of page processing.">
        <cfargument name="TargetPage" type="string" required="true" />
        <cfif structKeyExists(form,'resetappvars')>
            <cfset OnApplicationStart() />
        </cfif>
        <cfreturn true />
    </cffunction>
</cfcomponent>

Answer 1

This post of Ben Nadel gives detailed list of scopes available for different types of requests.

By reading it you can easily find out that form scope is not available in given context, but url is.