Conclusion

We started this chapter with a solid treatment of XML within Flash. We wrote and read XML documents using very natural ActionScript objects. We populated these objects with our own event handlers and extended them with our own methods . We even developed the notion of pointers to our own MovieClips.

We created response and request XML objects. We even brought these ideas together when our response and request objects managed the same XML elements. We now had a data object that we could share with the server process. We did just this ”passing it back and forth between the two applications multiple times at different points in the authentication process.

We carefully considered cookies. We developed a case for XML cookies and implemented them. As we studied cookies and Flash XML objects, we developed a functional login system.

We hardcoded a special account name and password and walked through the process of accepting the user, setting the cookie and then later remembering the cookie and automatically readmitting the user .

But what happened when we finally got to a real user login? It was anticlimactic. We did nothing interesting at all ”just echoed the request data.

This is because we cannot do much with a login request until we can access a database. In previous chapters, we studied the fundamentals of databases. Now it is time to get to work. We are finally ready to put everything together in a complete functional system.