Looking for an alternative to cfdump

Question

I think I just realized how restrictive my web host is when they wouldn't let me use cfdump. This actually kind of angers me, cause really, what harm is dump going to do? Anyway my question is has anyone written a cfdump alternative that will kick out complex types of data or can link me to a site with a code example? Can't really used cfc's or udfs either cause guess what, they're blocked too. Anyway looking for something simple that I can just paste in my cfml and I will be happy. It's sad that I used to be able to do this, but have forgotten a lot of that skillset since I moved into Flex and AS.

oh and they're using cf7, so no cf8 or 9 tricks ;-)

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You probably don't want to hear "Change to another hosting company" but if they're that restrictive, you're really limited in what you can do. I've actually never heard of a host that blocks cfdump although I know of a few that still, stupidly, block createObject().

Depending on exactly what they've blocked, you may be able to copy WEB-INF/cftags/dump.cfm from your local ColdFusion installation to a folder inside your application and then invoke it with cfmodule:

<cfmodule template="dump.cfm" var="#something#"/>

Answer 2

@Sean Corfield is right -- switch hosts.

In the meantime, there was a custom tag called "cf_dump" from the era of CF4. I have no idea if it will work on 7, but you could always try to get it working.

cf_dump at Adobe

Answer 3

In case anyone else comes across this old thread as I have just done, do not blindly following to the advice of "change your host", as this is very poor advice. make the effort to speak with your host before jumping to conclusions. The host have likely not blocked cfdump they have blocked Java, which is a good thing as this means they take security seriously. CFdump uses java, thus why it does not work. Allowing Java in CF is a very serious security issue as it completely bypasses all security sandboxes and without giving too much away basically means that any other customer on the same server could hack your site and steal your data as well as hacking/crashing ColdFusion itself.

Unfortunately blocking java does disable quite a lot of useful features and breaks most frameworks, so it is a toss up between functionality or security, so bear this in mind before you decide to go and find a host that enables everything and has no security. At the end of the day if you want access to all of ColdFusion's functionality then you need your own server or VPS.