Trying to call a subcomponent from within its main component in Lucee 6. Here is the code

//primary.cfc
component {
   function init(){
      variables.sub = new $sub(); //new this$sub(); //new primary$sub();
      return this;
   }
}
component name="sub" {
   function init(){ return this; }
}

One component per file. Move your "sub" component to

sub.cfc

then

variables.sub = new sub()

Appreciate the link, but it does not address how to call the sub component from within the main component

Sorry, I took a quick look to see what I could find but came up empty.

no worries 😉

That link is just some chatter about what could be the syntax. The closest I could find to docs is this: https://dev.lucee.org/t/what-is-new-in-lucee-6-part-1/13247#why-use-sub-components-13. I can't find anything on the actual docs site @ https://docs.lucee.org/ @artknight can you get the sub component syntax to work outside of the main CFC? IE: as per what little docs there are in that "what's new?" doc? I was gonna have a play around and work out what the story is, but as per the other thread I just started... there's no stable Lucee 6 docker image it seems, and I can't be arsed dicking around with SNAPSHOTs or BETAs.

@Adam Cameron Yes, invoking the sub component on the outside using the

new component$sub()

works

This works as expected for me:

// Parent.cfc
component {
    function init() {
        writeOutput("Main init<br>");
        variables.sub = new Parent$Sub();
    }

    function getSub() {
        return variables.sub;
    }
}

component name="Sub" {
    function init() {
        writeOutput("Sub init<br>");
    }
}

<!--- test.cfm --->
<cfscript>
    parent = new Parent()
    sub = parent.getSub()
    writeDump([
        sub=sub,
        metadata = getMetaData(sub)
    ])
</cfscript>

They should stick that in the docs.

#cue someone from the Lucee project to tell us to go do it ourselves.

@Adam Cameron The Parent$Sub() syntax worked for me as well. It’s weird because I had tried it before unsuccessfully. However, I still believe that this$Sub() should be the correct way.

this

in CFML is a reference to an object. Whereas

Parent$Sub

is a reference to a component. So using

this

in that context doesn't make any sense.

I would argue that this would/should refer to the component you are in, hence this$Sub() would be logical.

I would argue

Right. So despite the fact I just explained why that is off the mark, you'd still argue it. Cool. Um... file system references will still be case-sensitive on case-sensitive file systems. And last time I checked (which admittedly was ages ago... like over a decade), CFC paths / names are used for the file system access of same. But we don't need to conjecturize here. You have yer code and your computer, so you could... check?

@Adam Cameron ok, tested it with lowercase.. all worked as well. I am not sure what I did wrong the first time around..

weird. Still: all sorted And now I know that Lucee has sub components. Still thinking "what's an actual valid use case for this?" (disagreeing with all the ones the docs offer as being pretty specious), but at least it gave the the Lucee dev team something to do instead of fixing any of the 100+ _critical_+ bugs they have in already-released features. Which is... a thing. Apparently.

Glad it wasn't just me that didn't understand the use case for it, but I am not always the sharpest crayon in the box.

Thank you @Adam Cameron

One use case I can see where sub-components could be useful is when you just need a structured data object and you want something more robust than just a struct, but it's so highly coupled to the main component that it's not usable outside of the component.

that it's not usable outside of the component.

Indeed. I await to see how ppl abuse this feature, given the subclasses are accessible from the calling code. I guess the benefit over just "another CFC in the same package" is that the sub has access to the private stuff in the main class.

FYI, here's some info on subcomp , time point 25:05 . Their rationale is: improvement in performance by allowing for reduction in the number of separate component files.