Working with External Data

In Macromedia Flash Basic 8 and Macromedia Flash Professional 8, you can use ActionScript to load data from external sources to a SWF file. You can also send data, which could be provided by the user or the server, from a SWF file to an application server (such as Macromedia ColdFusion or Macromedia JRun) or another type of server-side script, such as PHP or Perl. Macromedia Flash Player can send and load data over HTTP or HTTPS or load from a local text file. You can also create persistent TCP/IP socket connections for applications that require low latency--for example, chat applications or stock quote services. New in Flash Player 8 is the ability to upload files from the user's computer to a server and download files from a server to the user's computer.

Data that you load into or send from a SWF file can be formatted as XML (Extensible Markup Language) or as name-value pairs.

Flash Player can also send data to and receive data from its host environment--a web browser, for example--or another instance of Flash Player on the same computer or web page.

By default, a SWF file can access only data that resides in exactly the same domain (for example, www.macromedia.com). (For more information, see About domains, cross-domain security, and SWF files.)

For more information on working with external data, see the following topics:

Sending and loading variables

Using HTTP to connect to server-side scripts

About file uploading and downloading

About XML

Sending messages to and from Flash Player

About the External API

Version 8

Send me an e-mail when comments are added to this page | Comment Report

Current page: http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/8/main/00001583.html