cfthread

The cfthread tag enables multithreaded programming in ColdFusion.
Threads are independent streams of execution, and multiple threads
on a page can execute simultaneously and asynchronously, letting you
perform asynchronous processing in CFML. CFML code within the cfthread
tag body executes on a separate thread while the page request thread
continues processing without waiting for the cfthread body to finish.
You use this tag to run or end a thread, temporarily stop thread execution,
or join together multiple threads.

<cfthread>

thread action="" name="";

Attribute Reference

name string
Required

The name of the thread to which the action applies:
terminate The name of the thread to stop.
join The name of the thread or threads to join to the current thread.
To specify multiple threads, use a comma-delimited list.
run The name to use to identify the thread being created. (required)

action string

The action to take, one of the following values:
join Makes the current thread wait until the thread or threads
specified in the name attribute complete processing, or until the
period specified in the timeout attribute passes, before continuing
processing. If you don't specify a timeout and thread you are joining
to doesn't finish, the current thread also cannot finish processing.

run Creates a thread and starts it processing.

sleep Suspends the current threads processing for the time specified
by the duration attribute. This action is useful if one thread must wait
for another thread to do processing without joining the threads.

terminate Stops processing of the thread specified in the name attribute.
If you terminate a thread, the thread scope includes an ERROR metadata
structure with information about the termination. (optional, default=run)

Values:

join
run
sleep
terminate

duration string

(sleep) The number of milliseconds for which to suspend thread processing. (required)

priority string

The priority level at which to run the thread.
The following values are valid:
HIGH, LOW, NORMAL
Higher priority threads get more processing time than lower priority
threads. Page-level code, the code that is outside of cfthread tags,
always has NORMAL priority. (optional, default=NORMAL)

Values:

HIGH
LOW
NORMAL

timeout numeric

The number of milliseconds that the current thread waits for
the thread or threads being joined to finish. If any thread does not
finish by the specified time, the current thread proceeds.
If the attribute value is 0, the default, the current thread continues
waiting until all joining threads finish. If the current thread is the
page thread, the page continues waiting until the threads are joined,
even if you specify a page timeout. (optional, default=0)

Compatibility

Lucee:

In Lucee name attribute is optional.

OpenBD:

In OpenBD name attribute is optional.

Examples
Sample code using the cfthread tag

Script Syntax

CF 9+

thread action="run" name="myThread" {
 // do single thread stuff 
} 
thread action="join" name="myThread,myOtherThread";

Tag Syntax

<cfthread action="run" name="myThread">
 <!--- Do single thread stuff ---> 
 </cfthread> 
 <cfthread action="join" name="myThread,myOtherThread" />