« Flash Xml Remoting v3.1 Actionscript is now public»

Flash Xml Remoting is a Component for Flash 2004 and 8 (AS2.0) that converts XML to Objects/Arrays.  This makes it a lot easier to work with Xml because you don't have to write custom Xml parsing code.

For example :

 
<items>
   <item>
      <value>1</value>
   </item>
</items>
 

Will parse a value of Number type in Flash by :

 
items.item.value //will equal 1
 

This is what happens with repeating item nodes

 
<items>
   <item>
      <value>1</value>
   </item>
   <item>
      <value>2</value>
   </item>
   <item>
      <value>3</value>
   </item>
</items>
 

Will parse to an Array :

items.item.length // will equal 3
items.item[1].value // will equal 2

The Xml parser will do so recursively so it doesn't matter how deep the Xml tree is it will still work

 
<items>
   <item name="foo" date="2007-03-07T23:38:02.703+11:00" active="true">
      <value>1</value>
      <value>2</value>
      <value>3</value>
   </item>
   <item>
      <value>2</value>
   </item>
</items>
 

Will parse to :

 
var itemsList:Array = items.item;
var valueItems:Array = itemsList[0].value
valueItems.length // will equal 3 - Number
itemsList[0].name // will equal foo - String
itemsList[0].date.getDate(); // will equal 7 - Number from Date Object for date
itemsList[0].active // will equal true - Boolean
 

It's been a while between updates but there have been quite a few improvements in v3.1 including performance, functionality improvements and a few bug fixes. As well in this version the Actionscript has been provided open source.The parser model is recursive and allows for the parsing of all formats of Xml to a data typed Object/Array.Flash Xml Remoting also hooks in with Macromedia’s NetDebugger Class allowing to view the parsed Xml in the NetConnection Debugger.The Macromedia Flash Remoting Debugger can be downloaded and installed at : http://www.macromedia.com/software/flashremoting/downloads/components/
You will require the appropriate OS flash remoting installation and version MX 2004 or 8 with Actionscript 2.0Currently Flash Xml Remoting is free of charge to use, though would appreciate any bugs or feature requests be forwarded to shanem@flashdynamix.com so we can better tailor this product to users needs.Flash Xml Remoting v3.1 includes quite a few updates these include :

Source code is now public.

XML can be compressed using the LZ77 Algorithim saving almost 80% on the size of the XML data. XML can be encoded using source files from www.strille.net

Have simplified and improved the recursive parsing engine.

Have enabled support for parsing to Flash Date type i.e. dates in the string format "2007-03-03T21:12:23.500+11:00" will parse to the date type. This is done by the new Date2 class included in the com folder. It allows for parsing and encoding date/times.

MXP installed version includes Flash Panel Help.

What v4.0 will include :

Major overhaul of parsing engine to allow for lazy decoding, so that XML doesnt parse until it is requested.

Include DataSet classes to allow for applying expressions to sort and filter data.

Options to allow setting of concurrency between multiple, single and last. Version 3.1 is always multiple.

Documentation is available in many formats including :

Online HTML

HTML download

Xml Remoting for Flash is available in a few formats including :

FLA compiled component

Open source actionscript

Open source actionscript with example FLA

MXP

SWC

Samples are also available for download :

DropDownlist Integration Example

Simple Debug Example

Simple Example

Download all of the above click here

More updates will be online before long, please feel free to post you're comments and requests here or queries direct to shanem[at]flashdynamix.com.

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