ColdFusion components encapsulate multiple, related, functions. A ColdFusion component is essentially a set of related user-defined functions and variables, with additional functionality to provide and control access to the component contents. ColdFusion components can make their data private, so that it is available to all functions (also called methods) in the component, but not to any application that uses the component.

ColdFusion components have the following features:

• They are designed to provide related services in a single unit.
• They can provide web services and make them available over the Internet.
• They can provide ColdFusion services that Flash clients can call directly.
• They have several features that are familiar to object-oriented programmers, including data hiding, inheritance, packages, and introspection.

For more information on ColdFusion components, see Building and Using ColdFusion Components.