"This book is an exceptional training manual to bring a web developer or flash designer with scripting skills into an entirely new world of coding."
--Christopher Ian Smith,
XML Developer, RespondTV.com

"This is a 'must-read' for any Flash developer."
--John Paul Rawlins, Editor
FlashNewz.com

Flash and XML shows designers and developers how to integrate these powerful technologies and create dynamic web sites. With this thoroughly readable guide you take Flash to the next level, interfacing ActionScript with XML. Empower your Flash projects with dynamic content, backend databases, server-based applications, peer-to-peer, and more.

Flash and XML is a tutorial that brings you up to speed on both technologies, offering clear and concise explanations. In addition, this book presents a number of important web technologies, including PHP, MySQL, and sockets. It shows how to work with these technologies to create n-tier, interactive systems that access the full resources of the Internet.

Sample projects (trivia game, XML browser, simple chat) showcase the capabilities of Flash and XML together and demonstrate important concepts, approaches, and techniques.

The companion web site at http://www.FlashandXML.com contains all of the source code referenced in the book, as well as updates, discussion groups, and links to other resources.

Containing plentiful examples, experience-based techniques, and just enough theory, Flash and XML is a one-stop sourcebook that will guide you in the development of web sites that are not only animated, interactive, and powerful, but extremely useful as well.

Specific topics covered include:

• Flash architecture

• ActionScript techniques

• XML in detail--for Flash developers

• DTD specification

• Internet request and response: HTTP

• Server scripting with PHP

• Basic SQL syntax

• Designing MySQL databases

• From MySQL to Flash via XML and PHP

• Cookies

• Packet sniffers

• Escaping the Domain Perimeter

• XML Sockets and streaming data

• Multi-user communication in Flash

0201729202B01142002

Amazon.com® Reader Reviews (Ranked by Helpfulness)

Average Amazon.com® Rating:  Based on 22 Ratings

A disappointing tome - 2004-09-02
Reviewer Rating:
I have to agree with other users who point out the book's awkward construction. It's sort of a mutant blend of a hands-on how-to book and a broader discussion of Flash and XML. As the authors ramble through the creation of an XML-based quiz engine, they abruptly propose different ways of addressing coding issues, then move on to the discussion of another coding aspect without telling you which of the two or three or four options you should have plugged in in order for the next set of code to work with it.

By mid-2004 this approach is even more awkward as you discover that some of the hands-on steps they tell you to carry out no longer work in Flash MX or Flash MX 2004; there's nothing on the cover or the introductory material to warn you that the authors wrote this for Flash 5.

A great end- to-end guide - 2005-08-23
Reviewer Rating:
I used this book to add database capabilities to our flash app, and could not have done it with out it. Well, perhaps that's an exaggeration, but it would have taken *significantly* longer.

Getting flash connected to a database requires a combination of good strategy and lots arcane nitpicking details that span multiple knowledge domains. The book brings you along, step by step, in making the app dynamic. The discussions of database design and implementation via PHP and mySQL were very useful.

The book was written during the day of Flash 5, but aside from a couple of outdated screen shots, the ActionScript is current with the version 7.

There were a couple of places where some explanations were a little light, but all in all, it was worth many times the price I paid for it.

Update and Caveat - 2009-09-22
Reviewer Rating:
Please note this book's publication date of 2001.

If, like most people in late 2009, you are still using ActionScript 2.0, you will find the Flash code in this book quite relevant. (But do yourself a favor and move on to AS 3.)

This book was written for PHP 3. It references functions that were promised for 4.0 and finally work well in 5.0. These are only needed for the realtime multiplayer projects at the end of the book. The book does not anticipate sophisticated class-oriented PHP.
The XML, HTTP and SQL chapters are all still valid.

The code for all these is still available on the web. http://bigfun.net/book

There are certainly more modern books available. The enduring value of this book is that it will patiently introduce you to each of the many technologies required to make a data driven Flash application. (But remember: the book does not use ActionScript 3.0... and you should.)

Not supported any longer - 2006-09-25
Reviewer Rating:
Don't waste your money. This book isn't supported any longer by the author and publisher so the code is no longer on the web. The code inside the book is so disjointed that I found it impossible to follow. They shouldn't be selling expired books.

Read this BEFORE you read any other Actionscript books - 2006-02-23
Reviewer Rating:
This book was suprisingly useful. I bought it to understand how to connect Flash to XML server back ends, but it quickly taught me much more that I was not expecting. The true value of this book is teaching how to use Actionscript 1.0 to make Flash Clients talk to servers with the fastest, leanest possible code (Not necessarily XML.)

The author does a great job of teaching how to make reusable, tiny, elegantly structured modules to build a trivia game. The lessons in here should be required reading for any Flash Actionscript programmer BEFORE they can use any fat Actionscript 2.0 components. By reading this book, you can avoid torturing your users with the "Loading Forever" progress bars which result from using Flash without understanding it's elegant, fast loading, optimized roots.

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