Data Connectivity (Flash Professional Only) - MACROMEDIA FLASH MX 2004-USING FLASH Use Manual

Data connectivity (Flash Professional only)

You use the connector components in Flash to connect to your data source. The schema for your
data source is mapped to properties of a connector component. A typical application might
contain several connector components for retrieving or updating data, or both.
Before you can create data bindings, you must either set up a connector component on the Stage
or create the proper mappings in ActionScript using the WebServiceConnector component class.
However, it is useful to first understand how data bindings in Flash work; see
(Flash Professional only)" on page
Note: External data refers to any data that is accessible through HTTP.
Flash comes with the following connector components:
•
The "WebServiceConnector component (Flash Professional only)", which lets you connect to
the WSDL URL of a web service.
•
The "XMLConnector component (Flash Professional only)", which lets you connect to any
external data source that returns XML through HTTP (such as JSP, ASP, Servlet, or
ColdFusion).
In addition to, or instead of, using these connector components, advanced developers and
database administrators can use the WebServices classes to write ActionScript code that accesses
remote procedure calls exposed by a server using Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). For
more information, see "Web service classes (Flash Professional only)" in Using Components.
Note: The WebService classes are accessible only through ActionScript code and are common to
various Macromedia products. The WebServiceConnector component has an API that is unique to
Flash MX 2004 and lets you access the component's methods, properties, and events through the
visual interface.
To help you consider what kind of connectivity architecture you should implement, see the
following DevNet articles: "Choosing Between XML, Web Services, and Remoting for Rich
Internet Applications" at
and "Getting a Handle on Web Services" at
flmxpro_webservices.html.
Connecting to web services with the WebService connector component
(Flash Professional only)
The WebServiceConnector component lets you introspect, access, and bind data between a
remote web service and your Flash application. A single instance of a WebServiceConnector
component can be used to make multiple calls to the same operation. To call more than one
operation, use a different instance of a WebServiceConnector component for each operation. For
example, you would use one instance to connect to a DataSet component and another instance to
connect to a resolver component, as shown in the illustration in the overview at the beginning of
this chapter.
274 Chapter 14: Data Integration (Flash Professional Only)
259.
www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flash/articles/ria_dataservices.html
www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flash/articles/
"Data binding