Code for communcation between PHP and AS2?

Question

I have a Flash developer I'm working with. This person is building a tool in AS2 that will provide an interface that will send voting data (firstname, lastname, email address, votes (there are 100 items in categories and users will be able to choose some subset to declare "best").

All fair enough, Flash dev will POST data to a PHP app I will develop, and I will store the data in MySQL. This Flash dev has not done a great deal of work with databases or web apps.

I want to return data back to the Flash application. I want to be able to return "email address invalid" or "problem connecting to database" or "vote information accepted" messages. My instinct is to want to send back JSON or XML data. But I'm wondering if there are tools in AS2 to easily consume such responses.

I would like to see some "Hello World" type examples of AS2 code that consumes JSON or XML data so I can get the Flash app and the PHP app interacting well. My understanding is AMF is not on the table because it's AS2, but I'm open to what will work on both ends given the constraint of it being AS2.

Answer 1

Below should give you an example.

XML:

<alldots>
  <dotname id="bigDot" color="0xff0000" url="http://www.fletchermartin.com/" photos="8" />
  <dotname id="otherDot" color="0x000066" url="http://www.ajc.com/" photos="8" />
  <dotname id="thirdDot" color="0xCC0099" url="http://www.tiffanybbrown.com/" photos="0" />
</alldots>

AS2 Code

var dots:XML = new XML();
dots.load('bigdot.xml');

dots.onLoad = function(success:Boolean){
    if(success){
     if(dots.status == 0){
       var dotsToXMLString:String = new String(); // initializes a new string variable
       dotsToXMLString = dots.toString();   // converts dots XML object to a string and stores it in dotsToXMLString.

       var dotsXML:XML = new XML(dotsToXMLString);// creates new XML object with the string contents from above.
       dotsXML.parseXML(dotsToXMLString);   // parses the string from above.

       var dotsNodes:Object = dotsXML.firstChild; // Saves the firstChild (in this case, the outermost element) as an object
       var dotsNodesChildren:Object = dotsNodes.childNodes; // Saves the childNodes of firstChild as an object

       for(i=0;i<dotsNodesChildren.length;i++){
       var newObj:Object = dotsNodes.childNodes[i].attributes.id; // creates a new object out of the child node's id.

       var newObjColor:Color = new Color(newObj); // creates a new color object with newObj as its target
       var theColor:Number = dotsNodes.childNodes[i].attributes.color; //retrieves the hex code value (number) of the attribute color

       newObjColor.setRGB(theColor); // sets the RGB value of newObjColor.
      }

     } else {
      trace("Problem parsing XML.");
     }
    } else{
     trace("Could not load XML");
    }
}