# CFSETTING

CFSETTING is used to control various aspects of page processing, such as controlling the output of HTML code in your pages. One benefit of this option is managing whitespace that can occur in output pages that are served by ColdFusion.

### Syntax

    <CFSETTING ENABLECFOUTPUTONLY="Yes/No"
        SHOWDEBUGOUTPUT="Yes/No"
        CATCHEXCEPTIONBYPATTERN="Yes/No"
    >

#### ENABLECFOUTPUTONLY

Required. Yes or No. When set to Yes, CFSETTING blocks output of all HTML that resides outside CFOUTPUT tags.

#### SHOWDEBUGOUTPUT

Optional. Yes or No. When set to No, SHOWDEBUGOUTPUT suppresses debugging information that would otherwise display at the end of the generated page. Default is Yes.

#### CATCHEXCEPTIONSBYPATTERN

Optional. Yes or No. When set to Yes, it overrides the structured exception handling introduced in 4.5. Default is No.

Note | Structured exception handling introduces a subtle upwards incompatibility. In 4.0.x, an exception was handled by the first CFCATCH block that could handle that type of exception. In 4.5, the structured exception manager searches for the best-fit CFCATCH handler.

### Usage

When nesting CFSETTING tags, you must match each ENABLECFOUTPUTONLY="Yes " setting with an ENABLECFOUTPUTONLY="No " setting for ordinary HTML text to be visible to a user. For example, if you have five ENABLECFOUTPUTONLY="Yes " statements, you must also have five corresponding ENABLECFOUTPUTONLY="No " statements for HTML text to be displayed again.

If at any point the output of plain HTML is enabled (no matter how many ENABLECFOUTPUTONLY="No " statements have been processed) the first ENABLECFOUTPUTONLY="YES " statement will block output.

### Example

    ...
    <CFSETTING ENABLECFOUTPUTONLY="Yes">
    This text is not shown
    <CFSETTING ENABLECFOUTPUTONLY="No">
    <P>This text is shown
    <CFSETTING ENABLECFOUTPUTONLY="Yes">
    <CFOUTPUT>
        <P>Text within CFOUTPUT is always shown
    </CFOUTPUT>
    <CFSETTING ENABLECFOUTPUTONLY="No">
    <CFOUTPUT>
        <P>Text within CFOUTPUT is always shown
    </CFOUTPUT>

    </BODY>
    </HTML>