it gets weirder.. this doesn't work with httpparam, but does if I take it away... http method="GET" charset="utf-8" url="https://www.google.com/" result="result" { httpparam name="q" type="formfield" value="cfml"; } but this also works.. cos.. now the tags are functions?!? with nesting { } ? cfhttp(method="GET", charset="utf-8", url="https://www.google.com/", result="result") { cfhttpparam(name="q", type="formfield", value="cfml"); }