Description:-

It reads a text file on the server. The file is read into a dynamic, local variable that you can use in the page. For example:
1. Read a text file; insert the file’s contents into a database or other.
2. Read a text file; use the find and replace function to modify the file’s contents.

<cffile
    action = "read"
    file = "full pathname"
    variable = "variable name"
    charset = "character set option"
>

cfscript the equivalent of the upper syntax

<cfscript>
    cffile(
        action = "read",
        file = "full pathname",
        variable = "variable name",
        charset = "character set option"
    );
</cfscript>

Attributes:-

action:- This is a required attribute, the type of file manipulation that the tag performs.

file:- This is a required attribute, The pathname of the file to which need to read.

variable:- This is a required attribute, the Name of the variable to contain the contents of the text file.

charset:- This is a non-required attribute, JVM default file character set for the default value, The character encoding in which the file contents are encoded. The following list includes commonly used values:-
utf-8
iso-8859-1
windows-1252
us-ascii
shift_jis
iso-2022-jp
euc-jp
euc-kr
big5
euc-cn
utf-16

Example:-

The following example creates a variable named Message for the contents of the file message.txt:

<cffile
    action = "read"
    file = "d:\files\documents\testNote.txt"
    variable = "testMessage"
>

The variable Message can be used in the page. For example, you could display the contents of the message.txt file on the final web page as follows:

<cfoutput>#testMessage#</cfoutput>

Note:- This action reads the file into a variable in the local Variables scope. It is not intended for use with large files, such as logs, because this can bring down the server.