Macromedia dreamweaver 8-using dreamweaver User Manual

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24

CHAPTER 24

Database Connections for 
ColdFusion Developers

You can connect to databases when developing Macromedia ColdFusion applications with 
Macromedia Dreamweaver 8. 

The chapter assumes you have set up a ColdFusion web application (see 

). It also assumes a database is set up on your local 

computer or on a system to which you have network or FTP access. 

To connect to the sample database provided by Dreamweaver, see “Setup for Sample 
ColdFusion Site” in Getting Started with Dreamweaver. To learn more about databases and 
database connections, see 

.

Connecting to a database

When developing a ColdFusion web application in Dreamweaver, you connect to a database 
by selecting a ColdFusion data source defined in Dreamweaver or in ColdFusion 
Administrator, the server’s management console.

Before you can connect to a database, make sure Dreamweaver knows where to find the 
ColdFusion data sources. To retrieve the ColdFusion data sources at design time, 
Dreamweaver places scripts in a folder on the computer running ColdFusion. You must 
specify this folder in the Testing Server category of the Site Definition dialog box. For more 
information, see 

Next, you must create a ColdFusion data source in Dreamweaver or in ColdFusion 
Administrator (if one doesn’t already exist). For more information, see 

After creating a ColdFusion data source, you can use it in Dreamweaver to connect to the 
database. For more information, see