Webmaster Forum / Flash / Data Integration / March 2006

Hi James,

Try this - http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/flash/articles/flash_xmlphp.html

Zimmer.

What you do in Flash has little or no impact on the serverside. Flash works
as an interchangeable client to multiple server side technologies.

If you are already comfortable with MySQL and PHP (or other server
scripting) to talk with MySQL, you only need to focus on the Flash AS
LoadVars or XML classes. As well if you get into Flash pre-built UI
components there are pre-built XML components to work with them if you want.

The key is to realize the serverside script no longer needs to produce the
GUI. The serverside is only is a data receiver and responder to your Flash
Movie. Some of the data sent might impact the GUI such as changing to a
different screen but it does not format it.

There are some decent examples in the Flash documentation:

Flash and PHP integration:
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/8/main/00001099.html
Data integration XML sample:
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/8/main/00001098.html
Working with External Data:
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/8/main/00001583.html
Sending and loading variables:
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/8/main/00001584.html
sendAndLoad (LoadVars.sendAndLoad method):
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/8/main/00002336.htmls
endAndLoad (XML.sendAndLoad method):
http://livedocs.macromedia.com/flash/8/main/00002879.html
Once you have the latter two examples tested and understood you only need to
build your server side code to receive data and return data to your Flash
movie.

Trying to ramp up my website to the next level by integrating my database
with
Flash.  I've looked around for a tutorial on this but haven't found one.
Must
not be looking in the right places.  Can someone point me in the right
direction?

thx

A good book on the subject is PHP 5 for Flash by David Powers published by Friends of Ed.

Also good is PHPObject from www.ghostwire.com (free). thats what I use and makes things rather easy.