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cfcollection

Last update:
May 18, 2026

Description

Creates and administers Solr search engine collections.

Category

Extensibility tags

Syntax

cfcollection supports script style syntax: 

new collection().CREATE(collection="<collection_name>", engine="solr", path="<path to the solr directory>"); 


<cfcollection 
action = "action" 
categories = "yes|no" 
collection = "collection name" 
engine = "solr 
language = "language" 
name = "query name" 
path = "c">
Note: You can specify this tag's attributes in an attributeCollection attribute whose value is a structure. Specify the structure name in the attributeCollection attribute and use the tag's attribute names as structure keys.

See also

cfexecute, cfindex, cfobject, cfreport, cfsearch, cfwddx

History

ColdFusion (2025 release):
  • Deprecated the language and engine attributes.
  • Removed the path attribute.
ColdFusion (2016 release): The path attribute is ignored.
ColdFusion 9: Added the engine attribute (required for Solr support).ColdFusion MX 7:
  • Starting with ColdFusion MX 7, you cannot use the cfcollection tag to create alias names for existing collections. Because Verity maintains all the collection information, you cannot have two names point to the same collection.
  • Removed reference to external collections.
  • Deprecated the map and repair options of the action attribute. They might not work, and might cause an error, in later releases.
  • Added categories attribute and categorylist action.
  • Added CATEGORIES, SIZE, DOCCOUNT, and LASTMODIFIED to list of variables returned by the list action.
  • Marked as obsolete the MAPPED, ONLINE, and REGISTERED variables returned by the list action. ColdFusion MX:
  • Changed the requirements for the action attribute: it is now required.
  • Added the action attribute list value. It is the default.
  • Changed the requirements for the action attribute value map: it is not necessary to specify the action attribute value map. (ColdFusion detects collections and creates maps collections as required.)
  • Changed acceptable collection naming: this tag accepts collection names that include spaces.
  • Changed Verity operations behavior: ColdFusion supports Verity operations on Acrobat PDF files.
  • Changed thrown exceptions: this tag can throw the SEARCHENGINE exception.

Attributes

Attribute
Req/Opt
Default
Description
action
Required; see Usage
list
  • categorylist: Retrieves categories from the collection and indicates how many documents are in each one. Returns a structure of structures in which the category representing each substructure is associated with a number of documents. For a category in a category tree, the number of documents is the number at or below that level in the tree.
  • create: registers the collection with ColdFusion. If the collection is present, the tag creates a map to it. If the collection is not present, the tag creates it.
  • delete: unregisters a collection and deletes its directories.
  • list: returns a query result set, named from the name attribute value, of the attributes of the collections that are registered by ColdFusion. If you have Solr collections and omit the engine attribute, ColdFusion lists information for both types of collections.
  • map: creates a map to a collection. If the action is create and the collection exists, ColdFusion also creates a map to the collection.
  • optimize: optimizes the structure and contents of the collection for searching; recovers space. Causes collection to be taken offline, preventing searches and indexing.
  • reload: The reload action allows you to reload a core or a collection in Solr. This action is useful for applying changes in configuration or settings without restarting the entire Solr server.
  • repair: deprecated. Does nothing.
categories
See Usage
no
Used only for creating a collection:
  • yes: this collection includes support for categories.
  • no: this collection does not support categories.
collection
See Usage
  • A collection name. Collection names are case-sensitive.
engine
Optional
Solr
The search engine for the collection:
  • solr: the Apache Lucene open source search engine For the create and map actions, the default is Solr. For the list action, the default is to list all collections, Solr. For all other actions ColdFusion determines the collection type.
language
See Usage
English
For a list of options, see Usage.
name
See Usage
Name for the query results returned by the list and categorylist actions.
path
Optional
Absolute path to a collection. To map an existing collection, specify a fully qualified path to the collection (not including the collection name); for example, "C:\MyCollections\".
All collections are created in the location specified in Solr Home field on the ColdFusion administration page.
Note:  Starting with ColdFusion 2016, the path attribute will be ignored. All the collections will be created in the collections directory at the location specified in Solr_Home field in the ColdFusion administrator page.
With this tag you can
  • Create Solr collections.
  • Administer Solr collections created by this tag or the ColdFusion Administrator. The following table shows the dependence relationships among this tag's attribute values:
This attribute is required, optional, or unnecessary (blank):
For this action attribute value:
list
create
map
optimize
repair
delete
category list
collection
Required
Required
Required
Required
Required
Required
path (Deprecated)
language
Optional
Optional
name
Required
Required
categories
The following examples show the structures returned by the categorylist action:
CATEGORIES
blue
10
green
3
magenta
3
purple
2
CATEGORYTREES
a/
10
a/b
10
a/b/c
10
a/b/c/subdir
3
The list action returns the following information in a result set that contains one row per collection:
Column
Contents
CATEGORIES
  • yes: the collection has category support enabled.
  • no: the collection does not have category support enabled.
CHARSET
The character set of the collection.
CREATED
The date and time that the collection was created.
DOCCOUNT
The number of documents in this collection.
EXTERNAL
  • yes: the collection is external.
  • no: the collection is not external.
  • not found: the collection is registered but is not available in the defined path.
LANGUAGE
The locale setting of the collection. This information is not available for K2Server collections.
LASTMODIFIED
The date and time that the collection was last changed.
MAPPED
Obsolete.
NAME
The name of the collection.
ONLINE
Obsolete.
PATH
Absolute path to the collection.
REGISTERED
Obsolete.
SIZE
The size of the collection, expressed in kilobytes.
You can also specify uni to enable support for multiple languages.

To determine whether a collection exists, use code, such as the following, to execute a query of queries:
<cfcollection action="list" name="myCollections" > 
<cfquery name="qoq" dbtype="query"> 
SELECT * from myCollections 
WHERE myCollections.name = 'myCollectionName' 
</cfquery> 
<cfif qoq.recordcount GT 0> 
<!--- Collection exists ---> 
<cfdump var = #qoq#> 
</cfif>
To determine whether a Solr collection exists, you must specifically add the attribute engine and provide the value as solr. For example,{{<cfcollection action="list" name="myCollections" engine="solr">}}To get a result set with values for all the collections that are registered with the search server, use code such as the following:
<cfcollection action="list" name="myCollections"> 
<cfoutput query="myCollections"> 
#name#<br> 
</cfoutput>
To add content to a collection, use cfindex. To search a collection, use cfsearch.Restart the ColdFusion Search Service for this change to take effect.
For Solr collections, the language attribute of this tag supports the following options:
Brazilian
cjk (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
French
Russian
Czech
Dutch
German
Thai
Chinese
English
Greek

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