Chapter 16: Working With External Data - MACROMEDIA FLASH 8-LEARNING ACTIONSCRIPT 2.0 IN FLASH Manual

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CHAPTER 16
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" on page 694.)
For more information on working with external data, see the following topics:
Sending and loading variables. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .634
Using HTTP to connect to server-side scripts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .638
About file uploading and downloading. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 644
About XML. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .652
Sending messages to and from Flash Player. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .663
About the External API . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 667
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