"Binary" is the operating word JOR. This makes remoting calls far smaller in
byte size and the code extremely portable. Of course, since the filesize is
smaller, there is a speed benefit as well. And the beauty of Remoting is
that data exchange is done independent of the language, while it still
remains native to the program. What that means is that if you pass an array
from Flash to let's say PHP, PHP will recieve the array in its own native
array format. And then if PHP returns an associative array for example,
Flash will recieve it as a Flash Object! This saves you from having to
deserialize or parse your xml object. Your code and life become easier :)
Flash remoting works with an inbuilt Flash Player Object called
NetConnection which allows you to exchange data with the server in a binary
format called Action Message Format (AMF). The serialization in this format
is done automatically via the NetConnection object. Your recieving
application should know how to deserialize it. The deserialization should be
abstracted in a generic way and that is what projects like AMFPHP or other
Remoting solutions for .NET, Java or ColdFusion do.
MM has made remoting into some complex mysterious thing by writing esoteric
actionscript classes but at the core Remoting is just this:
------------------------------------------------
var nc:NetConnection = new NetConnection();
nc.connect("aRemotingGatewayUrl");
nc.call("aRemoteServicePath", this);
this.onResult = function():Void{
trace(arguments);
}
this.onError = function():Void{
trace(arguments);
}
------------------------------------------------
This is not much different from the LoadVars or XML object where you have an
onLoad method. Here you have a onResult method and an onError method which
are called appropriately upon a server response.
There are solutions to deserialize the AMF format in Java, .NET,
ColdFusion(of course ;) as well as PHP. For PHP the project is called AMFPHP
(amfphp.org). It is extremely easy and fast to use. Once you get a hang of
it, you will never want exchange data any other way with your server :)
XML exchange is basically still a text based stream and taxes your code and
your player.
Imagine a world where there is no need for parsing/deserializing data. Just
exchange information with the server and display. That's remoting for you :)
Good Luck
Navneet
---------------------------------------------
----- Original Message -----
From: "JOR" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Flashcoders mailing list" <[email protected]>
Sent: Thursday, November 10, 2005 4:33 AM
Subject: Re: [Flashcoders] Remoting with AMFPHP vs. ASP
Can someone explain the difference or benefits between using Flash
Remoting versus the XML object to retreive data?
I haven't used Flash remoting yet mostly because of it's price tag. The
XML object has been working just fine for me. I use an XML object to load
in ASP pages that make SQL queries and return XML formatted strings.
Is it that remoting is better or do each have there own place?
JOR
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