Getting ASP.NET root path to Flex?

Question

I am working on a project that is primarily ASP.NET based. The main project is meant to be deployed to multiple locations for different clients, so one client might be located at website.com/client1 and another at website.com/client2. Within the application, we regularly use the application root operator ~ to get the path to a resource.

We also have a bunch of Flex applications that get deployed in there, and many rely on web services within the ASP.NET application. What I'm after is a way to reference the services relative to the application root. Here's an example of the location of some files for two client deployments:

Client A
- website.com/clientA/swf/FlexApplication.swf
- website.com/clientA/services/webService.asmx
Client B
- website.com/clientB/swf/FlexApplication.swf
- website.com/clientB/services/webService.asmx

FlexApplication and webService are both exactly the same, so what I want to do is something like this in the Flex code:

var myService:CustomService = new CustomService(~/services/webService.asmx);
myService.callMethod("Test");

I would like to avoid using relative paths for the usual reasons. Is there a good way to do this or a good way to pass the root url to the flex application from ASP.NET? Thanks in advance.

Shakakai · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-21 20:58:15Z

1

Its definitely a good idea to avoid relative URL's. The easiest way is to pass the information in via Flash Vars in the HTML embed statement.

Check out Adobe's documentation on using FlashVars with Flex: http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=passingarguments_3.html

Summary:

Add a line to the HTML embed statement like this:

<param name='flashVars' value='serviceRoot=/myserviceRoot'/>

Then access it in Flex via the mx.core.Application.application.parameters accessor

import mx.core.Application;

var parameters:Object = Application.application.parameters;
var serviceRoot:String = parameters['serviceRoot'];

answered Feb 21, 2011 at 20:58

Shakakai

3,5742 gold badges18 silver badges18 bronze badges

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

JeffryHouser · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-21 21:05:27Z

1

relative to the application root

Flex knows nothing about the application root of a ASP.NET application. The only thing that the Flex app knows is the URL that it is served from. It does not know the URL of the page. Keep in mind that the URL of the page and the URL of the SWF are not the same.

It appears, given your directory structure, that you can use the SWF's URL to get the information you're after.

In a Flex 3 Application, you can get use the url property of the Application tag:

(Application.application as Application).url

In a Flex 4 Spark application, you can also use the url property of the Application Tag, but you have to get it differently:

(FlexGlobals.topLevelApplication as Application).url

Then you can parse it with URLUtils to get your directory structure. Probably store that as a global variable in your Flex application somehow and use it to construct the URL for the service calls you are making to the remote server.

answered Feb 21, 2011 at 21:05

JeffryHouser

39.4k4 gold badges41 silver badges60 bronze badges

2 Comments

Ocelot20 Over a year ago

Useful info, but it would be essentially the same thing as a relative path. I need the flexibility to change the SWF location and the actual URL's are a bit more convoluted than my example.

JeffryHouser Over a year ago

This approach gets you the absolute path to the SWF; I'm not sure why you'd say it is the same as a relative path. I really don't understand why relative paths are bad in the original question; in my experience they are far superior to using absolute paths.

Andrew Westberg - BCSH · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-21 21:14:19Z

0

I use this handy little utility to get URL information via javascript inside the .swf.

http://www.flexpasta.com/index.php/category/utility-classes-that-help-you-deal-with-string-numbers-arrays-and-objects-in-actionscript/

answered Feb 21, 2011 at 21:14

Andrew Westberg - BCSH

9131 gold badge11 silver badges18 bronze badges

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

Getting ASP.NET root path to Flex?

3 Answers 3

Comments

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Hot Network Questions

Collectives™ on Stack Overflow

3 Answers 3

Comments

2 Comments

Comments

Your Answer

Sign up or log in

Post as a guest

Related