first off - does anyone know where to go for info on PHP with flash? I bought a book, ‘server-side flash’ and it really sucks. if anyone could give me a link or two, i’d appreciate it.\r\rsecond, and more specifically, can you echo more than one variable in a script? if so, how? …cause i’m having a lot of trouble with it.\r\rthanks
hmm… I kind of liked that book… but I’ll admit that it doesn’t really seem useful until you know a little more about PHP itself, and to a degree what the basic differences are between PHP, ASP, and PERL for starters.\r\rCheck out books from the library if you can, it will save a lot of bucks.\r\rPeachpit press are good for starters and usually contain a number of really good examples of working scripts which can be downloaded online for free.\r\rAs for echoing I’m not all that familiar with it myself, as I’ve been delving really heavy into Perl and XML right now. It seems like you should be able to echo as many as you like though. If I can find anything in a book on this matter I’ll let you know.
www.phpforflash.com , book’s ok if you don’t know PHP, author is quite helpfull (answers mails ‘n’ stuff, good forum too).
Take a look on the txt below it helped me making php talk. It helped :-)\r------------------------------------\r\rHow to Send Variables Between Flash and PHP\rI had to learn a lot of this on my own via trial and error since there was little available on the net that adequately explained how it works. I’m hoping this guide will save someone the hours of hammering that I spent. Once you get a few fundamental things down, I think you will find, as I have, that a flash/PHP combination is easy to set up and offers a lot of flexibility. I included a very simple flash movie and script to go along with this guide. I recommend downloading and briefly going over all of the files before reading on. \rHow It Works\rLoading variables from a PHP script is very similar to loading from a text file. The main difference is that the script performs work on a separate timeline. You can call a PHP script from a flash movie by using the LoadVariablesNum() command like so: \rloadVariablesNum (“scriptA.php”, 0, “POST”);\rRemember that your flash movie and the script are operating on separate timelines. The flash movie doesn’t just stop when you make the LoadVariablesNum() command. Instead, it activates the script and keeps moving. When the script is finished operating, the data that has been printed by the script is read by the flash movie. \rLoading Loop\rBecause the script is on a separate timeline, you need to create a loop in your flash movie that waits for the script to finish. Here is the code that I used in the sample .fla to make the loop: \rif (loading eq “YES”) {\r gotoAndPlay (_currentframe-1);\r} else {\r gotoAndStop (1);\r}\rWhen you click on the button that loads the script, the sample .fla also sets the ‘loading’ variable to ‘YES’. The movie knows when the script is done because it tells the movie that ‘loading=NO’. \rSetting POST\rYou may have scripts that do not need variables from the flash movie. In that case, you can leave the LoadVariablesNum() option set to ‘Don’t Send Variables’. Otherwise, you will need to set this option to ‘POST’ if you want variables to be sent into the script. Keep in mind that only the variables from the movieclip that contains the LoadVariablesNum() command will be sent! \rVariables In PHP\rVariables in a PHP script have a ‘$’ in front of them. For example, the variable named ‘who’ in flash will be ‘$who’ in the PHP script. \rThe ‘Print’ Statement\rThe data that the flash movie will eventually read is placed using ‘print’ statements. For an example of how print statements are used, refer to the file named: scriptA.php. Also note that all print statements in the script will be read at the same time. It’s easy to make the mistake of thinking that you can control the actions of the flash movie according to the placement of a print statement. For example, in the sample files, I have it set up so that the ‘loading’ variable is set to ‘NO’ at the end of the script. If the script contained more commands after this print statement, they would also be included in the data that gets sent to the flash movie. In addition, if I put the line at the beginning of the script, it would really make no apparent difference to the output either. Be sure to format your print statements so that the separate variables won’t get ‘smashed’ together. Imagine that the results of the script will most likely look like one, continuous line. For example, if your script includes: \rPrint “dogs=fun”;\rPrint “cats=boring”;\rThe resulting data that the flash movie will read will look like: \rdogs=funcats=boring\rBecause the movie won’t be able to distinguish where variables start and end, you will end up with undesirable results. To make it work, you must include ‘&’ between statements. For example, you might arrange the above data like this: \rPrint “&dogs=fun”;\rPrint “&cats=boring”;\rPrint “&fish=food”;\rThe resulting data will now look like this: \r&dogs=fun&cats=boring&fish=food\rThe ‘&’ between the variable statements allows flash to read them each as separate statements. \rFinal Notes\rI tried to narrow the information in this tutorial down to the things that caught me up the most. If you need to learn more about PHP, PHP.net and DevShed are great places to start. I will also answer questions posted on the forum at INDIVISION. Good luck and I hope this helps.
