perf: eliminate hot-path filesystem and regex costs in handler/routing layer

Four targeted optimizations on the per-request execution path:

1. HandlerService: cache ImplicitViews setting
   `getSetting("ImplicitViews")` was called on every handler dispatch where
   the requested action was missing. It is now cached to variables scope in
   onConfigurationLoad() alongside every other already-cached setting.

2. HandlerService.isViewDispatch: drop redundant fileExists(expandPath())
   locateView/locateModuleView already verify file existence and return the
   path with a .cfm/.bxm extension only when the file is confirmed present.
   The follow-up fileExists() call was re-doing answered work. Replaced with
   a cheap string suffix check — zero filesystem I/O.

3. RoutingService.findRoute: use cached canDebug local variable consistently
   canDebug was already stored in a local variable at the top of findRoute()
   but three spots inside the same method re-called getLogger().canDebug()
   instead of using it. All three now use the cached local variable.

4. Router/RoutingService: pre-parse response string placeholders at registration
   renderResponse() was running reMatchNoCase + reReplaceNoCase on the route's
   static response string on every request. Tokens are now parsed once in
   addRoute() into a responsePlaceholders array; renderResponse() iterates the
   pre-parsed list with no regex at runtime. Also fixes a latent bug where
   multiple placeholders were not all applied (original always replaced into
   the original string rather than the accumulated result).

Co-Authored-By: Claude Sonnet 4.6 <noreply@anthropic.com>
Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01MUinjJLvJod1u9s2e9T6zc

Author: claude

system/web/routing/Router.cfc

@@ -1065,6 +1065,13 @@ component
 			}
 		}
 
+		// Pre-parse response string placeholders so renderResponse() skips regex on every request
+		if ( isSimpleValue( thisRoute.response ) && len( thisRoute.response ) ) {
+			thisRoute.responsePlaceholders = reMatchNoCase( "{[^{]+?}", thisRoute.response ).map( function( token ){
+				return { token : token, key : reReplaceNoCase( token, "({|})", "", "all" ) };
+			} );
+		}
+
 		// Add it to the corresponding routing table
 		// MODULES
 		if ( len( arguments.module ) ) {
@@ -1133,6 +1140,7 @@ component
 			"rc"                    : {}, // The RC params to add incorporate if matched
 			"redirect"              : "", // The redirection location
 			"response"              : "", // Do we have an inline response closure
+			"responsePlaceholders"  : [], // Pre-parsed {token} list for string responses
 			"ssl"                   : false, // Are we forcing SSL
 			"statusCode"            : 200, // The response status code
 			"valuePairTranslation"  : true, // If we translate name-value pairs in the URL by convention

system/web/services/HandlerService.cfc

@@ -82,6 +82,7 @@ component extends="coldbox.system.web.services.BaseService" accessors="true" {
 		variables.handlersPath                 = variables.controller.getSetting( "handlersPath" )
 		variables.interceptorService           = variables.controller.getInterceptorService()
 		variables.invalidEventHandler          = variables.controller.getSetting( "invalidEventHandler" )
+		variables.implicitViews                = variables.controller.getSetting( "ImplicitViews" )
 		variables.modules                      = variables.controller.getSetting( "modules" )
 		variables.templateCache                = variables.controller.getCache( "template" )
 		variables.wirebox                      = variables.controller.getWireBox()
@@ -155,7 +156,7 @@ component extends="coldbox.system.web.services.BaseService" accessors="true" {
 
 			// Test for Implicit View Dispatch
 			if (
-				controller.getSetting( "ImplicitViews" ) AND
+				variables.implicitViews AND
 				isViewDispatch( arguments.ehBean.getFullEvent(), arguments.ehBean )
 			) {
 				return oEventHandler;
@@ -404,8 +405,9 @@ component extends="coldbox.system.web.services.BaseService" accessors="true" {
 			targetView = renderer.locateView( cEvent );
 		}
 
-		// CFML View
-		if ( fileExists( expandPath( targetView ) ) ) {
+		// locateView/locateModuleView return a path with .cfm/.bxm extension only when
+		// the file was verified to exist — no need for a redundant filesystem call here.
+		if ( right( targetView, 4 ) == ".cfm" || right( targetView, 4 ) == ".bxm" ) {
 			arguments.ehBean.setViewDispatch( true );
 			return true;
 		}

system/web/services/RoutingService.cfc

@@ -533,7 +533,7 @@ component extends="coldbox.system.web.services.BaseService" accessors="true" {
 
 		// Check if we found a route, else just return empty params struct
 		if ( results.route.isEmpty() ) {
-			if ( getLogger().canDebug() ) {
+			if ( canDebug ) {
 				getLogger().debug( "No URL routes matched on routed string: #requestString#" );
 			}
 			return results;
@@ -599,7 +599,7 @@ component extends="coldbox.system.web.services.BaseService" accessors="true" {
 			// reset pattern matching, if packages found.
 			if ( compare( packagedRequestString, requestString ) NEQ 0 ) {
 				// Log package resolved
-				if ( getLogger().canDebug() ) {
+				if ( canDebug ) {
 					getLogger().debug( "URL Routing Package Resolved: #packagedRequestString#" );
 				}
 				// Return found Route recursively.
@@ -781,16 +781,14 @@ component extends="coldbox.system.web.services.BaseService" accessors="true" {
 		// simple values
 		if ( isSimpleValue( aRoute.response ) ) {
 			// setup default response
-			theResponse      = aRoute.response;
-			// String replacements
-			var replacements = reMatchNoCase( "{[^{]+?}", aRoute.response );
-			for ( var thisReplacement in replacements ) {
-				var thisKey = reReplaceNoCase( thisReplacement, "({|})", "", "all" );
-				if ( event.valueExists( thisKey ) ) {
+			theResponse = aRoute.response;
+			// Apply pre-parsed placeholders (tokens resolved once at route registration)
+			for ( var placeholder in aRoute.responsePlaceholders ) {
+				if ( event.valueExists( placeholder.key ) ) {
 					theResponse = replace(
-						aRoute.response,
-						thisReplacement,
-						event.getValue( thisKey ),
+						theResponse,
+						placeholder.token,
+						event.getValue( placeholder.key ),
 						"all"
 					);
 				}

tests/specs/web/routing/RouterTest.cfc

@@ -666,6 +666,61 @@ component extends="coldbox.system.testing.BaseModelTest" {
 				} );
 			} );
 		} );
+
+		describe( "Response placeholder pre-parsing", function(){
+			beforeEach( function( currentSpec ){
+				router = createMock( "coldbox.system.web.routing.Router" )
+					.init()
+					.setController( controller )
+					.setLogBox( controller.getLogBox() )
+					.setLog( controller.getLogBox().getLogger( this ) )
+					.setCacheBox( controller.getCacheBox() )
+					.setWireBox( controller.getWireBox() );
+			} );
+
+			it( "a route with a static string response pre-parses placeholders at registration", function(){
+				router.addRoute( pattern = "/hello/:name", response = "Hello {name}!" );
+				var routes = router.getRoutes();
+				expect( routes ).toHaveLength( 1 );
+				expect( routes[ 1 ] ).toHaveKey( "responsePlaceholders" );
+				expect( routes[ 1 ].responsePlaceholders ).toHaveLength( 1 );
+				expect( routes[ 1 ].responsePlaceholders[ 1 ].token ).toBe( "{name}" );
+				expect( routes[ 1 ].responsePlaceholders[ 1 ].key ).toBe( "name" );
+			} );
+
+			it( "a route with multiple placeholders pre-parses all of them", function(){
+				router.addRoute( pattern = "/greet/:name/:mod", response = "Hello {name} from {mod}" );
+				var routes = router.getRoutes();
+				expect( routes[ 1 ].responsePlaceholders ).toHaveLength( 2 );
+				expect( routes[ 1 ].responsePlaceholders[ 1 ].key ).toBe( "name" );
+				expect( routes[ 1 ].responsePlaceholders[ 2 ].key ).toBe( "mod" );
+			} );
+
+			it( "a route with no placeholders has an empty responsePlaceholders array", function(){
+				router.addRoute( pattern = "/static", response = "No placeholders here" );
+				var routes = router.getRoutes();
+				expect( routes[ 1 ].responsePlaceholders ).toBeArray();
+				expect( routes[ 1 ].responsePlaceholders ).toHaveLength( 0 );
+			} );
+
+			it( "a route with a closure response has an empty responsePlaceholders array", function(){
+				router.addRoute(
+					pattern  = "/closure",
+					response = function( event, rc, prc ){ return "hi"; }
+				);
+				var routes = router.getRoutes();
+				expect( routes[ 1 ].responsePlaceholders ).toBeArray();
+				expect( routes[ 1 ].responsePlaceholders ).toHaveLength( 0 );
+			} );
+
+			it( "a route with no response has an empty responsePlaceholders array", function(){
+				router.addRoute( pattern = "/noop", event = "main.index" );
+				var routes = router.getRoutes();
+				expect( routes[ 1 ].responsePlaceholders ).toBeArray();
+				expect( routes[ 1 ].responsePlaceholders ).toHaveLength( 0 );
+			} );
+		} );
+	} );
 	}
 
 }

tests/specs/web/services/HandlerServiceTest.cfc

@@ -194,6 +194,31 @@ component extends="tests.resources.BaseIntegrationTest" {
 				} );
 			} );
 		} );
+
+		describe( "Hot-path caching optimizations", () => {
+			beforeEach( () => {
+				setup();
+				variables.handlerService = controller.getHandlerService();
+			} );
+
+			it( "caches implicitViews setting in variables scope after configuration load", () => {
+				// implicitViews must be a boolean cached from getSetting("ImplicitViews")
+				expect( variables.handlerService.$getProperty( "implicitViews", "variables" ) ).toBeBoolean();
+				expect( variables.handlerService.$getProperty( "implicitViews", "variables" ) ).toBeTrue();
+			} );
+
+			it( "isViewDispatch detects a view by extension without a filesystem call", () => {
+				// simpleview exists — getHandlerBean triggers isViewDispatch internally
+				// If the extension-check logic is wrong the viewDispatch flag won't be set
+				var results = variables.handlerService.getHandlerBean( "simpleview" );
+				expect( results.getViewDispatch() ).toBeTrue();
+			} );
+
+			it( "isViewDispatch returns false for an event with no matching view", () => {
+				var results = variables.handlerService.getHandlerBean( "nonexistent_view_xyz" );
+				expect( results.getViewDispatch() ).toBeFalse();
+			} );
+		} );
 	}
 
 }