ADOBE® FLEX® 3: BUILDING AND DEPLOYING ADOBE FLEX 3 APPLICATIONS

CHAPTER 8

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The following sections describe common scenarios where you could use the compc command-line compiler. You

can apply the techniques described here to compiling SWC files in Flex Builder with the Flex Library Compiler.

Compiling stand-alone components and classes

In many cases, you have one or more components that you use in your Flex applications, but you do not have them

in a package structure. You want to be able to use them in the generic namespace (“*”) inside your Flex applica-

tions. In these cases, you use the

include-classes option to add the components to your SWC file.

The following command-line example compiles two MXML components, Rotation.as and RotationInstance.as,

into a single SWC file:

compc -source-path .

-output c:/jrun4/servers/flex2/flex/WEB-INF/flex/user_classes/RotationClasses.swc

-include-classes rotationClasses.Rotation rotationClasses.RotationInstance

The rotationClasses directory is a subdirectory of the current directory, which is in the source path. The SWC file

is output to the user_classes directory, so the new components require no additional configuration to be used in

a server environment.

You use the

include-classes option to add components to the SWC file. You use just the class name of the

component and not the full filename (for example, MyComponent rather than MyComponent.as). Use dot-

notation to specify the location of the component in the package structure.

You also set the

source-path to the current directory or a directory from which the component directory can be

determined.

You can also add the framework.swc and framework_rb.swc files to the library-path option. This addition is

not always required if the compiler can determine the location of these SWC files on its own. However, if you move

the compiler utility out of the default location relative to the frameworks files, you must add it to the library path.

The previous command-line example appears in a configuration file as follows:

<compiler>

<source-path>

<path-element>.</path-element>

</source-path>

<output>

c:/jrun4/servers/flex2/flex/WEB-INF/flex/user_classes/RotationClasses.swc

</output>

</compiler>

<include-classes>

<class>rotationClasses.Rotation</class>

<class>rotationClasses.RotationInstance</class>

</include-classes>

165ADOBE FLEX 3

Building and Deploying Adobe Flex 3 Applications

To use components that are not in a package in a Flex application, you must declare a namespace that includes the

directory structure of the components. The following example declares a namespace for the components compiled

in the previous example:

<?xml version="1.0"?>

<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml"

xmln:local="rotationclasses.*">

...

<local:Rotation id="Rotate75" angleFrom="0" angleTo="75" duration="100"/>

...

</mx:Application>

To use the generic namespace of “*” rather than a namespace that includes a component’s directory structure, you

can include the directory in the

source-path as the following command-line example shows:

compc -source-path . c:/flexdeploy/comps/rotationClasses

-output c:/jrun4/servers/flex2/flex/WEB-INF/flex/user_classes/RotationComps.swc

-include-classes Rotation RotationInstance

Then, you can specify the namespace in your application as:

<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" xmln:local="*">

You are not required to use the directory name in the include-classes option if you add the directory to the

source path.

These options appear in a configuration file, as the following example shows:

<compiler>

<source-path>

<path-element>.</path-element>

<path-element>c:/flexdeploy/comps/rotationClasses</path-element>

</source-path>

<output>c:/jrun4/servers/flex2/flex/WEB-INF/flex/user_classes/

RotationComps.swc</output>

</compiler>

<include-classes>

<class>Rotation</class>

<class>RotationInstance</class>

<include-classes>

This example assumes that the components are not in a named package. For information about compiling

packaged components, see “Compiling components in packages” on page 166.