Dynamic problem with php

[TheBeginner]

Hi,

I'm really lost this time. I have:

database:
I have there information about songs, records and links to where the song are stored on the harddrive.

flash audio player:
This player ussually takes XML files, where you fill in the playlist.
I thought that this list can be generated with an php file thats connects to the database. So the input to the player is the file "playlist.php".

user choice:
The user can see the playlist for a record and then klick on a song or choose to play all songs.

The problem is how to make that connection between the php file and the player so this page can be dynamical.

I have to in this problem change the php-file (read and write) and then starta the player, but a solution like this can't work if many users are logged in, since it's seems kind of stupid to read and write a file all the time.

I really I'm lost and a little help would be great. Any idea of how to make this connection between link for the user, player och inputfile that can't be change.......

[kobmat]

I dont understand much about your post ... but from information i can get from it. It seems that you want the flash player to load a list of albums and then allows the users to click one song or play all songs....

What i would suggest is to make a php file that would return name-value pairs or XML of all the albums on the database ... then when the user selects an album it would call another php script that would return all the songs for that album... on this php file be sure to send to flash the path to where the song is stored...

if you want the user to select multiple songs across different albums... create an array in flash and store all the information of the song selected by the user. Having an array of user selected songs you can now give the user the option to suffle or play as list... or even loop through the list.

Hope this helps...

[TheBeginner]

Well, maybe I wasn't that clear.

The player (FLASH) has one input file: playlist.php
It reads the playlist-file and starts the player with that particular playlist.

I will then have a website where the user can choose a record.

When the record is chosen (klicked) - I want the player to start.

But how do the player which record to play? The php hasn't change? The php-file don't know in that case which record has to be chosen.

I really don't know how to make that connection:
One way would be to open and rewrite the php-file everytime a user choses a record and the start the player. But opening files and writing in them, is just stuoid I guess.

Is that more clear?

[kobmat]

You can actually pass a query string to flash must like in PHP.

for example...
player.swf?playlist=1

on the first frame of the flash movie put

_root.playlistchosen = playlist;

that is just so that we can access it from any level in flash.

i guessing the flash is doing an getURL or a LoadVars.

if it is using a getURL, add the following to the call to playlist.php

getURL("playlist.php?playlist=" + root.playlistchosen, "self");

if its using Loadvars

x = new LoadVars();
x.load("playlist.php?playlist=" + _root.playlistchosen);

and on the playlist.php add a check for $_REQUEST['playlist'] so that it would return the appropriate songs for the playlist.

[TheBeginner]

Ohhh...I have a limited knowledge in flash so I didn't know I can pass parameters like that. If so then everything makes it easier!

Thanks for the help.

/Martin

[kobmat]

Im glad i can help... Let me know if you have some trouble with it.....