How do I output an XML document object that is populated with SQL query data containing HTML content to an XML file in ColdFusion?

Question

I have written a script in ColdFusion that grabs all of the HTML content for my website in a database table and creates an XML document object. Below is my code so far.

<!--- Get page info --->
<cfquery name="qPageInfo" datasource="#application.datasource#">
    SELECT top 800 id, title, info, app
    FROM sitePublic
</cfquery>

<cfdump var="#qPageInfo#">

<!--- Creating XML document object w/ sitePublic data --->
 <cfxml variable="xmlPageInfo">
    <page>
        <cfoutput query="qPageInfo">
            <id>#qPageInfo.id#</id>
            <pagecontent>#Trim("#XMLFormat(qPageInfo.info)#")#</pagecontent>
        </cfoutput>
    </page> 
 </cfxml>

 <!---<cfdump var="#xmlPageInfo#">--->

 <!--- Need to figure out how to output to a file --->
 <cffile action="write" file="%filepath%/webcontent.xml" output="#qPageInfo#">

I was able to successfully do a cfdump on the XML document object and it dumped all content for all web pages in the browser window.

However, the part I cannot seem to get working is the last line, <cffile> to output the XML data to an XML file. Below is the error I get when trying to run execute this.

The expression has requested a variable or an intermediate expression result as a simple value. However, the result cannot be converted to a simple value. Simple values are strings, numbers, boolean values, and date/time values. Queries, arrays, and COM objects are examples of complex values.

The most likely cause of the error is that you tried to use a complex value as a simple one. For example, you tried to use a query variable in a cfif tag.

I am new to ColdFusion so I could be leaving something out in my code, does anyone have an idea on how to fix this?

Answer 1

I have a large and small concern about this

First

<!--- Creating XML document object w/ sitePublic data --->
<cfxml variable="xmlPageInfo">
<page>
    <cfoutput query="qPageInfo">
        <id>#qPageInfo.id#</id>
        <pagecontent>#Trim("#XMLFormat(qPageInfo.info)#")#</pagecontent>
    </cfoutput>
</page> 
</cfxml>

This is going to generate lots and lots of <id> and <pagecontent> tags

Consider

<pagecontent id="#qPageInfo.id#">#Trim(XMLFormat(qPageInfo.info))#</pagecontent>

Second

<cffile action="write" file="%filepath%/webcontent.xml" output="#qPageInfo#">

Now the real problem, qPageInfo is the query. I suspect that you wanted to write the xml.

The simpler approach is to deal with the XML as a string

<cfsavecontent variable="xmlPageInfo">
<page>
    <cfoutput query="qPageInfo">
        <pagecontent id="#qPageInfo.id#">#Trim(XMLFormat(qPageInfo.info))#</pagecontent>
    </cfoutput>
</page> 
</cfsavecontent>


<cffile action="write" file="%filepath%/webcontent.xml" output="#xmlPageInfo#">

OR

If you want to make sure you are processing xml and not just a string that is xml

<cfxml variable="xmlPageInfo">
<page>
    <cfoutput query="qPageInfo">
        <pagecontent id="#qPageInfo.id#">#Trim(XMLFormat(qPageInfo.info))#</pagecontent>
    </cfoutput>
</page> 
</cfxml>


<cffile action="write" file="%filepath%/webcontent.xml" output="#ToString(xmlPageInfo)#">