Actionscript Cookbook

20.1. Establishing a Connection via Flash Remoting

Problem

You want to establish a connection to the Flash Remoting gateway on your chosen server.

Solution

Pass the URL of the Flash Remoting gateway to NetServices.createGatewayConnection( ). Alternatively, set a default gateway URL using NetServices.setDefaultGatewayURL( ). As an optional, additional step, specify the gateway URL in the FlashVars attribute within the HTML page in which the Flash movie is embedded (when applicable).

Discussion

A Flash movie accesses Flash Remoting functionality on a sever via a connection object that communicates via a gateway. A connection object is obtained by invoking NetServices.createGatewayConnection( ). A gateway is simply specified as a URL to the appropriate server.

Within ActionScript, you have two options for setting the Flash Remoting gateway URL that a connection object uses. The exact URL varies depending on the location of your remote application and the server model in use, as described in Recipe 20.2, Recipe 20.3, Recipe 20.4, and Recipe 20.5. The most direct route is to specify the URL as a parameter when you invoke the NetServices.createGatewayConnection( ) method. For example:

#include "NetServices.as"

myConnection =
   NetServices.createGatewayConnection("http://localhost/flashservices/gateway/");

There is technically nothing wrong with this direct approach. However, a better, more flexible approach is to set a default gateway URL with NetServices.setDefaultGatewayURL( ) and not specify ...