Moving Complex Data Structures Across The Web With Wddx; An Overview Of Distributed Data For The Web - MACROMEDIA COLDFUSION 5-DEVELOPING Develop Manual

Moving Complex Data Structures Across the Web with WDDX

Moving Complex Data Structures Across the Web with
WDDX
You can move complex data structures across the Web using Web Distributed Data
Exchange (WDDX). This capability is based on Extensible Markup Language (XML)
1.0 and you can use it to exchange data between CFML applications and other
applications.
Additionally, you can use WDDX for server-to-browser and browser-to-server
JavaScript data exchanges. You can transfer server data to the browser and convert it
to JavaScript objects. You can serialize JavaScript data generated on the browser,
which translates the native data structures into an abstract representation in XML,
and transferr the data to the application server. Conversely, you can deserialize
WDDX XML into a native data structure. You serialize and deserialize WDDX data
using the
While WDDX is a valuable tool for ColdFusion developers, its usefulness is not
limited to CFML. WDDX serialization of common programming data structures
(such as arrays, record sets, and structures) enables data communication, using
HTTP , across a range of languages and platforms. Also, you can use WDDX to store
complex data in a database, file, or even Client variable.
WDDX was created in 1998, and many applications now expose WDDX capabilities.
The best source of information about WDDX is http://www.openwddx.org/. This site
offers a free download of the WDDX SDK and a number of resources, including a
WDDX FAQ and a developer forum.

An overview of distributed data for the Web

WDDX is an XML vocabulary for describing complex data structures such as arrays,
associative arrays, and record sets in a generic fashion so you can move them
between different application server platforms and between application servers and
browsers using only HTTP. Target platforms for WDDX include ColdFusion, Active
Server Pages (ASP), JavaScript, Perl, Java, Python, COM, Macromedia Flash, and
PHP.
Unlike other approaches to creating XML-based generic distributed object systems
for the Web, WDDX is not designed as an analog of traditional object programming
languages. These approaches use XML as a generic descriptor for initiating remote
procedure calls between different object frameworks. This is a valuable response to
the problem of using traditional object-based applications on the Internet, but it is
more useful as a bridge between different programming paradigms than it is as a
Web-native methodology for distributing structured data between application.
There are several problems with merging the distributed object model of computing
with the Internet. Primarily, this model was designed with a completely different
vision of general internetworking. Instead of the "dumb and disconnected" model of
HTTP , distributed computing was built on the assumption of rich network services
that allow resources on remote machines to act like local components. These
services allow an application on one system to find, invoke, and maintain state with
tag.
cfwddx
345