Help Getting PHP Variables Into Flash

[rosem]

Hey Everyone,

I'm working on a flash project, which pulls a thumbnail and a description from a MySQL database. The client gave me the two variable names that he's currently using on the website (in PHP), they are:

the variable for the website thumbails:
wwwThumb/thumb_{$featured[num].fid}_pic.jpg

variable for the text:
{$featured[num].des}

My question is, how do I prepare these in a standalone PHP file that echos the variables, so I can use it for flash.

Thanks,
Mike

[CyanBlue]

Have PHP echo out those values like this...

PHP Code:

echo("&" . "thumb=" . "wwwThumb/thumb_{$featured[num].fid}_pic.jpg" . "&" . "txt=" . {$featured[num].des} . "&"); 


[rosem]

Thank you for the reply. I'm not very familiar with PHP—do I basically just copy and paste that line of code into a PHP document?

Variables in Flash would be "thumbs" and "txt" ?

Thanks,
Mike

[CyanBlue]

No, that line alone won't work... You'd need that $featured array defined somewhere above that echo line so that it will actually have value for you...

If you use LoadVars(), you can access those values like yourLoadVarsInstance.thumb and yourLoadVarsInstance.txt

[rosem]

Ah, alright...

So if they already have a page up, and they are using these variables to populate a section of the page (not in flash), could I just put that echo line on that page? I think that's what you meant by having the array defined somewhere.

Thanks a lot for all your help so far!
Mike

[CyanBlue]

Um, no... Those variables are not going to be available on your PHP script unless you somehow make a link to the other PHP script...
Normally we use include statement to do that in PHP, but I cannot really give you any further help on this specific matter because I have no idea what's going on in your environment...
http://us.php.net/include/

[mj7]

If you already have the populated variables in a PHP page you can very easily send them to the Flash file by using the flashVars parameter when embedding your swf - for example: (using dreamweaver's default swf insertion code) - note this will only send one thumbnail variable and one text variable - if you want to send the whole array you'll need to use a loader function in Flash and loop out all the variables in a PHP page (I can help if you need)

<script type="text/javascript">
AC_FL_RunContent( 'codebase','http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,28,0','width','372','height','290','src','yourSwfHere','quality','high','pluginspage','http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash','movie','yourSwfHere','flashVars','webThum=<?php echo "wwwThumb/thumb_{$featured[num].fid}_pic.jpg"; ?>&webText=<?php echo {$featured[num].des};?>' ); //end AC code
</script><noscript><object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,28,0" width="372" height="290">
  <param name="movie" value="yourSwfHere.swf" />
  <param name="quality" value="high" />
  <param name="flashVars" value="webThum=<?php echo "wwwThumb/thumb_{$featured[num].fid}_pic.jpg"; ?>&webText=<?php echo {$featured[num].des}; ?>" />
  <embed src="yourSwfHere.swf" quality="high" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="372" height="290"></embed>
</object></noscript>

You should then be able to call _root.webThum and _root.webText from within flash