Fun with Functions and CFCs V - Method Copying / API Updates, Practical Uses
posted under category: ColdFusion on December 14, 2007 by Nathan
Here's something I did a few months ago. What happens when the names in your exposed API are too confusing? It's been published, now it's too late to take it back, and now millions of other developers (ok, a handful, if we're lucky) who depend on our object would cry foul if we changed it. What to do, what to do?
Well, why not just rename the method? Ok, rename is too strong a word. How about copying a pointer? Oh yeah, that's easy.
<cfset variables.getMethodWithStandardName = variables.getMethodWithFunnyName />
<cfset this.getMethodWithStandardName = this.getMethodWithFunnyName />
There we go, now you can go about using an updated API while leaving the old API in place and not breaking any backward compatibility!