Flex/AIR + Catalyst: What's the best way to get them to talk to each other?

Question

What is the best way to get Adobe Flex/AIR to communicate with perl Catalyst?

We are currently using Catalyst::Plugin::XMLRPC on the Catalyst side and as3-rpclib on the Flex/AIR side. That works fine, but I'd rather take as3-rpclib out of the picture and use a method that is native to Flex.

From what I can tell, it's native compnonents are HTTPService, WebService (SOAP), and RemoteObject.

Which one is the best fit in the Catalyst environment?

Also, could you point me to a nice "Hello World" example of the winner? WSDLs make my head spin.

Answer 1

SOAP and Catalyst::Controller::SOAP look to be what you want. It is based on XML::Compile::SOAP, which is "the good one". The docs tell you how to make a WSDL into a service that your Catalyst app provides.

(If you want to go the other way, there is Catalyst::Model::SOAP, but I don't think that's what you want.)

If JSON is an option, you might consider that. It is very easy to use with Catalyst::Controller::REST or Catalyst::View::JSON.