Using the cfmailparam tag



You use the cfmailparam tag to include files in your message or add a custom header to an e-mail message. You can send files as attachments or display them inline in the message. You nest the cfmailparam tag within the cfmail tag.

Attaching files to a message

You can use one cfmailparam tag for each attachment, as the following example shows:

<cfmail from="daniel@MyCompany.com" 
    to="jacob@YourCompany.com" 
    subject="Requested Files"> 
 
Jake, 
 
Here are the files you requested. 
 
Regards, 
Dan 
 
<cfmailparam file="c:\widget_launch\photo_01.jpg"> 
<cfmailparam file="c:\widget_launch\press_release.doc"> 
 
</cfmail>

Use a fully qualified system path for the file attribute of cfmailparam. The file must be located on a drive on the ColdFusion server machine (or a location on the local network), not the browser machine.

Including images in a message

You can use the cfmailparam to include images from other files in an HTML message, as follows:

  1. Place a cfmailparam tag for each image following the cfmail start tag.

  2. In each cfmailparam tag, do the following

    • Set the file attribute to the location of the image.

    • Specify disposition="inline"

    • Set the contentID attribute to a unique identifier; for example, myImage1.

  3. In the location in your HTML where you want the message included, use an img tag such as the following:

    <img src="cid:myImage1">

The following example shows a simple mail message with an inline image. In this case, the image is located between paragraphs, but you could include it directly inline with the text. To test this example, replace the cfmailto parameter with a valid e-mail address and change the file parameter to the path to a valid image.

<cfmail type="HTML" 
        to = "Peter@myCo.com" 
        from = "Paul@AnotherCo.com" 
        subject = "Sample inline image"> 
    <cfmailparam file="C:\Inetpub\wwwroot\web.gif"  
        disposition="inline"  
        contentID="image1"> 
    <P>There should be an image here</p> 
    <img src="cid:image1"> 
    <p> This text follows the picture</p> 
</cfmail>

Adding a custom header to a message

When the recipient of an e-mail message replies to the message, the reply is sent, by default, to the address specified in the From field of the original message. You can use the cfmailparam tag to provide a Reply-To e-mail address that tells the mail client to override the value in the From field. Using cfmailparam, the reply to the following example is addressed to widget_master@YourCompany.com:

<cfmail from="jacob@YourCompany.com" 
    to="daniel@MyCompany.com" 
    subject="Requested Files"> 
<cfmailparam name="Reply-To" value="widget_master@YourCompany.com"> 
 
Dan, 
Thanks very much for the sending the widget press release and graphic.  
I'm now the company's Widget Master and am accepting e-mail at  
widget_master@YourCompany.com. 
 
See you at Widget World 2002! 
 
Jake 
</cfmail>
Note: You can combine the two uses of cfmailparam within the same ColdFusion page. Write a separate cfmailparam tag for each header and for each attached file.