Flex : providing data with a PHP Class

Question

Hello,

i'm a very new user to flex (never use flex, nor flashbuilder, nor action script before), but i want to learn this langage because of the beautiful RIA and chart it can do.

I watched the video on adobe : 1 hour to build your first program but i'm stuck :

On the video it says that we have to provide a PHP class for accessing data and i used the example that flash builder gave (with zend framework and mysqli). I never used those ones and it makes a lot to learn if i count zen + mysqli.

My question is : can i use a PHP class like this one ? What does flash builder except in return ? i hear that was automatic.

example it may be wrong, i'm not very familiar with classes when acessing to database :

<?php
class DBConnection {
    protected $server   = "localhost";
    protected $username = "root"; 
    protected $password = "root";
    protected $dbname   = "something";

    protected $connection;

    function __construct() {
        $this->connection = mysql_connect($this->server, $this->username, $this->password);
        mysql_select_db($this->dbname,$this->connection);
        mysql_query("SET NAMES 'utf8'", $this->connection);
    }

    function query($query) {
        $result = mysql_query($query, $this->connection);
        if (!$result) {
            echo 'request error ' . mysql_error($this->connection);
            exit;
        }
        return $result;
    }

    function getAll() {
        $req = "select * from servers";
            $result = query($req)
            return $result
    }
    function num_rows() {
            return mysql_num_rows($result);
        }

    function end() {
        mysql_close($this->connection);
    }
}

?> 

Thank you,

Answer 1

Hey Tristan,

There are basically 3 ways that PHP and Flex can talk to each other. One is over XML, the other is over SOAP-based web services, and the last one is over AMF. The example you saw probably uses AMF but it might be a bit of overkill for you to use that.

What I'd do is just create a PHP file that outputs only XML and call that from Flex. The Flex code will look something like:

<mx:HTTPService id="srv" url="your_php_file_that_outputs_xml" />

You'll have to add a result handler and fault handler, but I think this will be much easier than using AMF.

=Ryan - [email protected]