Using Flash to Create an XML file

[creativehues]

I'm trying to figure out the best way to create a form in flash that be set up with dynamic text fields that would allow a non technical person to enter plain text and then submit it to a mysql database with xml tags added.

The overall project is a admin tool that will provide a team to input daily lunch specials via a password protected portion of their website.

What are the elements/technologies that I will need to research in order to accomplish this project?

- Thanks!

[WhidbeyTomas]

What technologies? Well, you'll need to understand XML, mySQL, and what ever technology you will use to pass data. But this too obvious to say.

Your challenge is interesting. I would think you could do this by creating text variables and wrapping them with XML tags (concatinate). You could wrap as much as you want around your variables, making variables with tags alone, or you could contatinate these to become complete xml documents that you would pass to the database as individual variables.

The next question is how you would pull this out of the database in the form of a document.

My advice is to use this kind of logic, laying out each step of the process, and to attack each question one at a tiime. You can target different forums, depending on the subject. For example, you can get specific focused information about actionScript here and information about mySQL or XML somewhere else.

I hope this helps. I think it would be good if you were to post notes to this post indicating progress on this. I would be interested in hearing how you do.

[flashbot]

I'm trying to figure out the best way to create a form in flash that be set up with dynamic text fields that would allow a non technical person to enter plain text and then submit it to a mysql database with xml tags added.

The overall project is a admin tool that will provide a team to input daily lunch specials via a password protected portion of their website.

What are the elements/technologies that I will need to research in order to accomplish this project?

- Thanks!

If your aim is to develop this admin interface in flash which would store information in a mysql database, then may I ask you two WHY use xml?

XML would pose as a data storage REPLACEMENT for mySQL when you are targeting small amount of data to be stored.

Now, down to business, I would set up the form in Flash, and use the loadVariables function to pass the variables to a PHP file. This file would pick up the variables (GET) and insert them into the database.

Alternatively, if XML is what you're after, then set aside the mySQL database. Get yourself an XML parser which can be installed in the site. You can configure it to take in the users information and write the XML file. Then all you have to do is program Flash to read from the XML file.

Hope it makes sense.