Flash Remoting

Use Flash Remoting and AMF for optimized client-server data communication.

You can use XML to load remote content into SWF files. However, XML is plain text that the runtime loads and parses. XML works best for applications that load a limited amount of content. If you are developing an application that loads a large amount of content, consider using the Flash Remoting technology and Action Message Format (AMF).

AMF is a binary format used to share data between a server and the runtime. Using AMF reduces the size of the data and improves the speed of transmission. Because AMF is a native format for the runtime, sending AMF data to the runtime avoids memory-intensive serialization and deserialization on the client side. The remoting gateway handles these tasks. When sending an ActionScript data type to a server, the remoting gateway handles the serialization for you on the server side. The gateway also sends you the corresponding data type. This data type is a class created on the server that exposes a set of methods that can be called from the runtime. Flash Remoting gateways include ZendAMF, FluorineFX, WebORB, and BlazeDS, an official open-source Java Flash Remoting gateway from Adobe.

The following figure illustrates the concept of Flash Remoting:

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Flash Remoting

The following example uses the NetConnection class to connect to a Flash Remoting gateway:

// Create the NetConnection object 
var connection:NetConnection = new NetConnection (); 
  
// Connect to a Flash Remoting gateway 
connection.connect ("http://www.yourserver.com/remotingservice/gateway.php"); 
  
// Asynchronous handlers for incoming data and errors 
function success ( incomingData:* ):void 
{ 
    trace( incomingData ); 
} 
  
function error ( error:* ):void 
{ 
    trace( "Error occured" ); 
} 
  
// Create an object that handles the mapping to success and error handlers 
var serverResult:Responder = new Responder (success, error); 
  
// Call the remote method 
connection.call ("org.yourserver.HelloWorld.sayHello", serverResult, "Hello there ?");

Connecting to a remoting gateway is straightforward. However, using Flash Remoting can be made even easier by using the RemoteObject class included in the Adobe® Flex® SDK.

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