Flash 8 Cookbook

19.5. Calling Web Service Methods with Components

Problem

You want to call a web service method without having to write much ActionScript.

Solution

Use the WebServiceConnector component.

Discussion

Web services are systems that are designed so that they can be called from remote computers over a network. Typically, web services are called over HTTP much like a standard web page request. That means that you can run applications or parts of applications by making HTTP requests. The benefit is that applications can be deployed over a network, and more sophisticated applications can be built by utilizing remote services. For example, Amazon.com has a public web service program. You can build an application that calls methods from the Amazon.com web service. That way your application can leverage the functionality of Amazon.com without having to reinvent the wheel.

Because applications can be built using many different technologies (such as Java, PHP, .NET, and C), there needs to be a standard way in which diverse applications can communicate. There are many standards utilized by web services. However, the standards that are most commonly used are WSDL and SOAP. WSDL (Web Services Description Language) describes the public interface for a web service. That means that a WSDL document describes the methods you can call for a web service. SOAP (which is currently no longer considered to be an acronym) is an XML-based messaging format used to send requests and responses. In practical terms, a ...