flash and php communication

Anon

I'm trying to get a flash movie to send variables to a php script and then have the php send a response back. I'm not actually writing the php -just the flash. the person who is writing the php is asking me what is the best way to communicate with the flash movie? I thought you're supposed to have the php file return text in the format var=value&var2=value2. I thought that this would pass the variables into the flash movie. But it didnt seem to work. Can anyone help me?? i'm desperate for help!

Anon

To send to the php file, use a button that will get url using POST to send them,

getting the variables back from the flash file im not so sure on, im trying to get variables from a php to flash at the moment, but i think its something like LoadVariables and the file is the php file in question, it should pull them in with & between them all, but i dont seem to be able to get it to work yet =(

If anyone answers me on any of my other postings ill forward it to here.

Anon

thanks very much for that -at last some kind of human response!! (thankyou php builder people) i've got such a headache from trying to find info on this all morning! you do use the load variables command. everything i've seen suggests that it should work with just the one load varibales calling the php file -this should send the info and trigger a response to be loaded into the movie in one go. unforunately i havent got this to work.

However, as time is short for this project i'm suggesting something else. you can send the variables to the php file using load variables and then, if this can be done with php, generate a .txt file with the response variables in it. Then you use a second load variables command in flash to load in the variables from the .txt file. I know that you can definately load variables into flash from a .txt file becasue i just tried it! Coming from a flash background -not php, i'm just keeping my fingers crossed you can generate txt files on the fly with php!???
heres the flash code:
Load Variables ("response.txt", 0)
simple and effective. (the txt file looks like this: var1=value&var2=value etc.)

Anon

hi,

first of all, no need for a headache, its all quite simple, both of your problems are explained in all detail on this two tutorials:
http://www.thickbook.com/extra/php_flashyquote.phtml
http://www.thickbook.com/extra/php_flashymail.phtml

They are for Flash4, but i used them in Flash5 with no Problems ...

cya Rob

Anon

thank you very much!!!!! this is by far the friendliest programming site i've been to!

Anon

Thanks, youve got me on the right track

im managing to get some variables in, but getting the right ones is proving difficult.

Im send people a url like xmas.php3?id=1

then there are some if statements defining two other variables in a php3 file

recipient

and

greeting

i work out how to encode them so flash can get hold of them, but I always get the variables that i had set in the else if part, ie if the id variable never existed. How can i get the id from the URL into flash so when it queries the php3 file it will ask for xmas.php?id=1 rather than just xmas.php3

tricky isnt it?

thanks,
michael

Anon

Hi Mike,

looks like we both have the same problem at the moment, sad is, that none of us knows a solution :-(( I also want to make greeting cards, sending the person who receives the card a URL with the same parameter you send (id)... but I haven't figured out how to get the id in the flash movie ... now I have found a sort of a workaround ... the greeting card is a (php) html file, and the flashmovies are put inside the html file ...(php knows how the greeting card should look like) ... This solution also has the big advantage, that people without the flashplugin, can at least view the greeting ... nevertheless it is a workaround (and I'm not too happy with it) ...
But besides that, yesterday I found a page (also greeting cards) and they pass the parameter sort like flashmovie.swf?id=1&name=bla& ... haven't tried how they get the data in the flashmovie... maybe its so easy that you can acces them as variables directly ... I haven't tried it, because I've allready gone some way with the html/php/flashpage and there is other work to do as well :-)) but if you want to look, here's the URL:
http://www.arosa2000.com
hope that helps, and if you find something out, let me know !!!

cya Rob

Anon

I have the solution.

Ok its not quite what started out trying to do, but the end result is the same

In the page which contains the flash file,
say xmas.php3?xmas_id=4

use the PHP set cookie function to slap that id into a cookie.

Next have a file called getcookie.php3 or something similar, ensuring that the PHP Get_HTTP_HEADERS function is at the top, followed by if statements, hell even a database query, but all based on the value of $xmas_id (which you remember was set in ye olde cookie by xmas.php3). Then encode your strings with rawurlencode() function, echo them and you are almost there.

If you load variables from that file using flash, the cookie then results in the correct output being churned out, thus flash loads dynamic input, based upon a URL based variable.

This took me so long to work out. If you want the files, email me and ill send them to you.

spread the word,
Mikeb

Anon

Do you have register_globals enabled in your php setup?

If so, you should be able to see the value of the $id variable without problems.

If its not activated, then you can retrieve the value with $HTTP_GET_VARS['id']

Hope it helps ... all the cookie stuff seems too complicated.

Anon

hello, i'd forgotten about this thread, i solved the problems i was having a while ago -i know i should have posted how i solved it earlier sorry! however i have a feeling the thread started to involve problems beyond my experience anyway -as i said in the beginning i'm a flash programmer with no understanding of php.

thats said, my basic problem with communication was that the test flash swf file and the php script were on seperate servers -flash appears to do an automatic security check whereby you can send variables to a script on a remote server but not recieve. do i feel stupid? yup.
in the course of the project i was working on i learned loads -mainly that flash integrates very well with database scripts,
if you want to see what i was working on its at:
www.think-energy.com/kids
any questions on the flash side of it i'm happy to answer, php stuff i'd refer to the tutorials mentioned above. cheers.

Anon

well, i'd forgotten about this thread too ... anyway we solved the problem in a different way ... you can use js to control a flash-film... don't know about this because our designer made the js but i call a html page give the js a few values and the flash film does what it should ...
This is not a PHP only issue but i recently learned, that you CAN pass values to a flash film when opening it, infact it is really easy... you do it this way filename.swf?var1=value&var2=value ... the variables are available in the first (oh god i use a german version of flash so its quite hard to translate the part containing this, well i give it a try) scene1 layer0 (does that make sense ?!?!) well they are available at the start of the movie... i think its not to dificult to figure it out, just use a _root.var1 and you should have them ...
hope that helps
cya Rob

Anon

Hi;
Could you please send your solution to me? I have the same question. Thanks so much!!!

Nice day