Flash Article

Flash MX Professional 2004 Data Integration Using Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP)

For application developers who are serving dynamic data to users, the data integration cycle is an ever-present and critical hurdle, regardless of the programming language. How do you get the data from the database to the user, let the user change the data, and then save those changes back to the database? Mastering this cycle is critical. Successful applications depend on you being able to implement this cycle over and over again quickly and easily.

Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004 represents a giant leap forward in mastering this cycle for Rich Internet Applications. This article will demonstrate how Flash MX Professional 2004 automates this cycle to let you get on with the business of application building and not get bogged down in the details. Specifically, I will discuss the Flash data bindings, packet communications from Flash to the server, and, more importantly, the middleware steps necessary to process the packets and update the database.

This article deconstructs a post made to the Flash Data Integration forum in November 2003. The middleware used is Microsoft Active Server Pages (ASP) and the database is Microsoft Access. However, you can apply the methods used to any middleware such as Macromedia ColdFusion, Microsoft ASP.NET, PERL, and to most databases available in the Microsoft Windows environment like Microsoft SQL Server, mySQL, and so on.

Requirements

To complete this tutorial you will need to install the following software and files:

Flash MX Professional 2004

• Try
• Buy

Web server

A web server with IIS installed is required if you wish to run the application in this article. You must configure IIS to allow the execution of ASP Script files and writing to the Access file. If your web directory is not configured for writing, move the MDB file to a writable directory and change the ASP MapPath statement to reflect its new location.

Tutorials and sample files:

• rdbms_example.zip (1.59 MB)

This ZIP archive contains Flash and ASP source files and a small Access database. See the readme.txt file in zip for installation instructions.

Note: You do not need Microsoft Access installed to run this example.

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