A–C
D–H
I–Z
- Salesforce.com
- Security
- Scripting
- Software as a service wiki
- Spry framework for Ajax
- SVG
- SWF
- TIFF
- Video
- Web services
- XML
- XMP
Project centers
Community resources
- Flex cookbook (share code)
- CSS Advisor (browser bug fixes)
- Exchanges (share components)
- Adobe Labs
- Adobe Open Source
- Forums
- RSS feeds
- Bug base
- User group search
- About user groups
- Adobe Community Experts (ACE)
- Developer events
Product documentation
Downloads
Samples
Training and books
- Online training
- Classroom training
- Certification
- Adobe Developer Library
- Adobe Press
- Safari Books Online
Newsletters
Blogs
- MXNA (blog aggregator)
- Adobe blogs
Archives
ADC program
Additional resources
Flex Article
An interoperability guide to using Flex and .NET data types
Mark Piller
mark@themidnightcoders.com
themidnightcoders.com
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- Working with the built-in data types: Primitive types
- Arrays and maps/dictionaries
- Generic collections
- .NET data objects serialization
- Complex types
Note: This article was created based on Flex 2. Minor changes in the description and code may be necessary before it can be applied to Flex 3.
Adobe Flex and .NET programming environments offer extensive class libraries and allow broad type customizations through custom classes, inheritance, and polymorphism. As a result, mapping client-side objects to their server-side counterparts is one of the most important tasks for a developer. This becomes particularly important since a well-designed rich Internet application spans both client and server application domains, but must function as one application. This article gives a detailed overview of the default mappings between ActionScript and .NET data types. Additionally, it reviews the process of establishing custom complex type mappings.
My previous article, Invoking .NET objects using the Flex RemoteObject API, describes how to invoke .NET methods from Flex. I recommended that you follow the steps in that article first, to ensure your development environment is configured correctly for invoking .NET methods from Flex.
The examples and solution demonstrated in this article uses WebORB for .NET, a product by Midnight Coders that facilitates connectivity between Flex and .NET. WebORB functions as a gateway between Flex clients and .NET objects. Using WebORB, your Flex applications can use the standard remoting API to communicate with .NET.
Requirements
Adobe Flex Builder 2.0.1
Microsoft Internet Information Services Server (version 5.x or later)
Microsoft .NET version 2.0 or later (installed on the system and integrated into IIS)
Visual Studio 2003 or 2005
WebORB for .NET version 3.1 or later
Sample files:
- Flex Builder project files: FlexInteropDotNet.zip (ZIP, 34K)
- Visual Studio project files: FlexInteropClient.zip (ZIP, 17K)
About the author
Mark Piller is the founder and Chief Architect of Midnight Coders, an innovative and forward-thinking company specializing in RIA integration technologies, professional services and training. Mark has over 15 years of software development experience. For the past five years he has been specializing in building software infrastructure products designed to integrate Flex, Flash, and AJAX applications with a variety of backend systems, including .NET, Java, PHP, and Ruby on Rails. Mark is very passionate about ease-of-use of software and prides himself in creating technologies that clearly demonstrate that quality.
