MACROMEDIA FLASH 8-LEARNING ACTIONSCRIPT 2.0 IN FLASH - Page 639

Using HTTP to connect to server-side scripts 639
■ Variables sets the HTTP method, either GET (appends the variables to the end of the
URL) or
POST (sends the variables in a separate HTTP header), by which the variables
are sent. When this parameter is omitted, Flash Player defaults to
GET, but no variables
are sent.
For example, if you want to track the high scores for a game, you could store the scores on a
server and use
loadVariables() to load them into the SWF file each time someone played
the game. The function call might look like the following example:
this.createEmptyMovieClip("highscore_mc", 10);
loadVariables("http://www.helpexamples.com/flash/highscore.php",
highscore_mc, "GET");
This example loads variables from the ColdFusion script called high_score.cfm into the movie
clip instance
scoreClip using the GET HTTP method.
Any variables loaded with the
loadVariables() function must be in the standard MIME
format application/x-www-form-urlencoded (a standard format used by CFM and CGI scripts).
The file you specify in the
URL parameter of loadVariables() must write out the variable
and value pairs in this format so that Flash can read them. This file can specify any number of
variables; variable and value pairs must be separated with an ampersand (
&), and words within
a value must be separated with a plus (
+) sign. For example, the following phrase defines
several variables:
highScore1=54000&playerName1=RGoulet&highScore2=53455&playerName2=
WNewton&highScore3=42885&playerName3=TJones
For more information, see the following topic: “Using the LoadVars class” on page 639. Also,
see loadVariables function, getURL function, loadMovie function, and the
LoadVars entry in the ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference.
Using the LoadVars class
If you are publishing to Flash Player 6 or later and want more flexibility than
loadVariables() offers, you can use the LoadVars class instead to transfer variables between
a SWF file and a server.
The LoadVars class was introduced in Flash Player 6 to provide a cleaner, more object-
oriented interface for the common task of exchanging CGI data with a web server. Advantages
of the LoadVars class include the following:
NOTE
You might need to URL-encode certain characters, such as the plus (+) sign or
ampersand (&) characters. For more information, see www.macromedia.com/go/
tn_14143.