- (void)addObserver:(id)notificationObserver selector:(SEL)notificationSelector name:(NSString *)notificationName object:(id)notificationSender
- (void)postNotificationName:(NSString *)notificationName object:(id)notificationSender userInfo:(NSDictionary *)userInfo
- (void)removeObserver:(id)notificationObserver name:(NSString *)notificationName object:(id)notificationSender

addObserver is the same as addEventListener
removeObserver is the same as removeEventListener
postNotification is the same as dispatchEvent

Small demo:

//AppDelegate.m
- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)application {
       //….
       [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] addObserver:self selector:@selector(handler:) name:@"event" object:nil];
}
-(void)handler:(NSNotification *)notification
{
       NSLog(@"%@",notification);
       //will output:
       //NSConcreteNotification 0x574ef0 {name = event; object = <rootViewController: 0x580530>}
}
 
//RootViewController.m
- (void)viewDidLoad {
       //…
       [[NSNotificationCenter defaultCenter] postNotificationName:@"event" object:self];
}

It’s true that the UIView object has comparisons with the Movieclip object in actionscript.
But not everything is the same. I’m going to discuss a couple of examples that you would do with a movieclip and show you how to can achieve the same result in objective-c with the UIView object.
But first a couple of statements about the UIView / Movieclip object:

Containing childs :

//Actionscript 3
for( var i : int = 0 ; i < 10 ; i ++ ){
     var rect : Rectangle = new Rectangle(); //Custom object
     rect.x = 50*Math.floor(i%4);
     rect.y = 90*Math.floor(i/4);
     addChild(rect);
}
trace(numChildren); //result: 10

//Objective-C
for(int i = 0; i < 10 ; i++){
     Rectangle *rect = [[Rectangle alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(0,0,40,80)]; //Custom Object
     rect.transform = CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation(50*floor(i%4), 90*floor(i/4));
     [window addSubview:rect]; //See that your window variable is accessible
     [rect release];
}
NSLog(@"%i",[[window subviews] count]); //result: 10

You just allocate your object and initiate it with the initWithFrame: function. You pass it the size and position you want in our case x,y = 0 the width is 40 and the height 80 in our case.
since you can’t directly acces the frame X and Y values ( except if you pass a new CGRect to the frame property)
there is a big difference with UIView and Movieclip
With UIView you have to specify a canvas when you init the object
a Movieclip will autoresize to the content inside, unless you define the width and height
with the use of a UIView you have 2 important property’s , Frame & Bounds ( understanding frame and bounds )

//rect.frame.origin.x = 100.0f; <- will give an error (invalid lvalue in assignment)
CGRect frame = rect.frame;
frame.origin = CGPointMake(100,0);
rect.frame = frame;

but I’m in favor to use the transform property and pass it an Matrix Translation with the CGAffineTransformMakeTranslation function which returns an matrix translation structure.
I pass it the x and y values I want (in this case I’m iterating my x and y values so it will look like the picture below)
don’t forget to release your object If your not going to use it anymore
and our window subviews count is 10

Comparison iphone as3

on the left flash in the browser on the right the iphone (looks exactly the same)
Drawing into a view/display object:

//Actionscript 3
public function Rectangle()
{
     super();
     graphics.beginFill(0xFF0000);
     graphics.drawRect(0,0,40,80);
     graphics.endFill();
}

Objective-C
- (void)drawRect:(CGRect)rect {
     // Drawing code
     CGContextRef context = UIGraphicsGetCurrentContext();
     CGContextSetRGBFillColor(context, 1.0, 0.0, 0.0, 1.0);
     CGContextFillRect(context, rect);
}

If you make a view object in xcode there will be a function created for you called drawRect:
that’s the function where you mostly want to put your code for drawing.
the first thing that you got to do is get the graphics context (in a movieclip that’s just a property but in objective c you can get the graphics context with a simple function)
you define which rgb color you want to use for that context and you fill that rect using the CGContextFillRect passing it the context + the frame you want to draw it in.

the drawRect: function is automatically called on initialization and the rect that is passed is the frame property. Since our frame-size is 40×80 we just pas it the rect (you could define your own rect).

if you want to redraw don’t ever call the drawRect: method directly! (EVER..)
use the setNeedsDisplay or setNeedsDisplayInRect: function.

Animating your view/display object:
you can animate your view in 2 different ways, using the animation methods provided by the UIView or changing the properties using a timer.
Which would be the same as using the Tween class or changing the property values in an onenterframe event.

//Actionscript 3
//Append this code to the previous function
var rectAnim1 : Rectangle = new Rectangle();
rectAnim1.y = 90*4;
rectAnim1.x = 100;
rectAnim1.addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, animateHandler);
addChild(rectAnim1);
 
var rectAnim2 : Rectangle = new Rectangle();
rectAnim2.y = 90*4;
rectAnim2.x = 200;
addChild(rectAnim2);
TweenLite.to(rectAnim2, 5, {rotation:180,ease:Expo.easeInOut});
//end
private function animateHandler( e : Event ) : void
{
     Rectangle(e.target).rotation = Rectangle(e.target).rotation+1;
}

//Objective-C
//Append this code to the previous function
Rectangle *rectAnim1 = [[Rectangle alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(100,90*4,40,80)]; //Custom Object
[window addSubview:rectAnim1];
rectAnim1.transform = CGAffineTransformMakeRotation(0);
[UIView beginAnimations:@"rotate" context:nil];
[UIView setAnimationCurve:UIViewAnimationCurveEaseInOut];
[UIView setAnimationDuration:5];
rectAnim1.transform = CGAffineTransformMakeRotation(3.14);
[UIView commitAnimations];
 
rectAnim2 = [[Rectangle alloc] initWithFrame:CGRectMake(200,90*4,40,80)]; //Custom Object (added to you interface so you can acces it from other functions)
[window addSubview:rectAnim2];
[NSTimer scheduledTimerWithTimeInterval:0.033f target:self selector:@selector(handleTimer:) userInfo:nil repeats:YES];
//end
- (void) handleTimer:(NSTimer *)timer
{
     angle += 0.03;
     rectAnim2.transform = CGAffineTransformMakeRotation(angle);
}

So for the first animation were going to use the animation methods provided by the UIView we define a beginning and we give it a name. we define the curve and the duration. Than we define all our transformation we want to make happen. And we commit the animations (which means that they will instantly start playing.
For the other example we use a Timer, we schedule a timer that will tick every 0.033seconds we define the method that we want to be called every tick with a selector en we define a repeat so it will repeat endlessly
In the method handleTimer we just going to rotate by adding 0.03 to the currentAngle

Accessing view through id:

//Actionscript 3
//you need to name your movieclip (with a number)
//so add this line of code into your for loop
rect.name = String(i);
//end
 
trace(this.getChildAt(3));
trace(this.getChildByName("3")); //returns the movieclip with name “3”

//Objective-C
//you need to tag our views (with a number)
//so add this line of code into your for loop
rect.tag = i;
//end
NSLog(@"%@",[window viewWithTag:3]); //returns the view with tag “3”

There are a lot more comparisons like they both have the alpha property, you can insert views at a certain index, observing changes, and a lot more. I just wanted to point out a couple of practical comparisons between the 2 languages.

For you guys who don’t know what fitc is.

If you were lucky enough to attend our FITC Amsterdam 2008, you know what it’s all about. If you missed it, you’re going to want to grab a ticket before they’re all gone (there sold out, but you can put yourself on the wait list http://www.fitc.ca/amsterdam/wait/). There is no other event quite like it. The combination of unbelievable presenters from around the globe, incredible networking opportunities, and the infamous FITC parties, all with the amazing backdrop of the city of Amsterdam, creates a stage set for the unexpected. We’ve brought back some of your favourite speakers, added a number of new ones, and we also have a few surprises up our sleeve to keep everyone on their toes. With some of the most interesting and engaging presenters from around the world, it’s 2 days and nights that will leave you inspired, energized and awed. And probably pretty tired. So join us for an event you will never forget!
With a limited number of tickets available, this event will sell out.

• 2 full days and nights of events, plus 1 day of optional pre-festival workshops
• Over 50 presentations and panels covering the Creative, Technical, and Business aspects of Flash and digital media
• Over 500 attendees from around the globe
• Over 50 internationally renowned design and technology presenters
• Includes three FITC evening events

Me and my co-worker Thomas Joos Developed a complete mobile guide for the upcoming FITC Amsterdam.

What can you expect from the mobile guide we developed?

• FITC Web iPhone mobile guide ( m.fitc.ca FITC iPhone Web guide video )
• FITC Native iPhone mobile guide ( coming soon )
• FITC Flash Lite mobile guide ( http://www.fitc.ca/amsterdam/mobile )
• FITC FlashLite Screensaver/Wallpaper
• FITC iPhone Wallpaper

Today, FITC has send out a press release in order to inform all attendees that there is a whole range of mobile FITC Amsterdam content available. As some of you know, I kinda have my share in this one:

Toronto, Canada [January x, 2009] — Adobe Max Award08 winner Boulevart is busy putting the final touches on a mobile content package for FITC Amsterdam, a two-day event focused on the art and craft of Interactive design and technology. This is the second year for FITC Amsterdam, which takes place February 22 – 24, 2009 at the Felix Meritis European Centre for Arts and Sciences. The Boulevart team includes Mobile Consultant and Flash® Lite™ expert Thomas Joos, a graduate of the Technical University of West-Flanders.

“Thomas is on the cutting-edge of rich media for mobile and typifies the kind of sharp, young creative minds that make our events a success,” says Shawn Pucknell, Founder and Executive Producer of FITC Amsterdam.

Beginning today, FITC Amsterdam attendees can download mobile screensavers, wallpapers, and a 2009 event guide at http://www.fitc.ca/amsterdam/mobile. All content was developed by Boulevart using Adobe® Flash® Lite™, a powerful runtime engine for mobile and consumer electronics devices.

[...]

You can download the entire press release here. Go and check out http://www.fitc.ca/amsterdam/mobile and if you are attending make sure you don’t miss FITC’s mobile boat this year!

If you like what you see and you want something similar for your event.. you can always contact me.

So 2 links you definitely should check out
FITC iPhone Website ( m.fitc.ca FITC iPhone Web guide video )
FITC Mobile guide Page ( http://www.fitc.ca/amsterdam/mobile )

We are going to be present at FITC Amsterdam so if you have any questions or feedback, just come up to us.
So that being said. I learned a lot couple of last weeks, so when i find a little more free time there will definitly be a couple of follow up tutorials about iphone development ( + as3 conversion ). (which i’m currently already working on)

So for this part of the tutorial my usercase will be. Send a couple of Person objects over http using json to encode and get an xml in return which lists the Person objects in xml form. This maybe not a practical usercase but it illustrates the point of sending json over http.

So we will use POST for the HTTP Request. Which is a very simple way to send data over http from 1 point to another ( think of all the html forms filled in, in best case they will use POST to send data over from 1 page to another).

Obj-c: data: encode json  -> http (post) -> php: decode json + change to xml -> http -> obj-c: XML

So I’m going to provide the php I use, I didn’t wrote it myself, I used google and came with this piece of code.

\n";
    $xml .= "\n";
    foreach($buffer as $val) {
        $xml .= "    \n";
 
        foreach ($val as $key => $value) {
            $xml .= "        &lt;{$key}&gt;".utf8_encode($value)."<!--{$key}-->\n";
        }
 
        $xml .= "    \n";
    }
    $xml .= "\n";
 
    return $xml;
}
$json = $_POST["json"];
$data = json_decode(stripslashes($json));
echo array2xml($data);
?&gt;

So I’m not going to discuss all the code. Just a couple of them.

• We change our content type to xml
• We have our function that is going to convert an array into a xml.
• We have our json data that we get from post (which simply has the name json)
• We decode our data using json_decode and this is import, since json uses quotation marks in its string we have to use the function stripslashes. Because when we are going to send our json string with Post Http request before every quotation mark it will add a slash. So just make sure to strip those slashes. It will return an array since we send an array to our php.
• Echo that $data variable using the array2xml which will return an xml String.

So for the actionscript part we have:

package
{
     import com.adobe.serialization.json.JSON;
 
     import flash.display.Sprite;
     import flash.events.Event;
     import flash.net.*;
 
     public class MainJSON extends Sprite
     {
          public function MainJSON()
          {
               var arr : Array = new Array(new Person("Lord Vader",23),new Person("Qui-Gon Jinn",51));
               sendJSON( arr );
          }
          private function sendJSON( a : Array ) : void
          {
               var jsonString : String = JSON.encode(a);
 
               var urlVariables:URLVariables = new URLVariables();
               urlVariables.json = jsonString;
 
               var urlRequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest("http://localhost/iphone/json/array2xml.php");
               urlRequest.method = URLRequestMethod.POST;
               urlRequest.data = urlVariables;
 
               var urlLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
               urlLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, onURLLoaderCompleteEvent);
               urlLoader.load(urlRequest);
          }
          private function onURLLoaderCompleteEvent( evt : Event ) : void
          {
               var xml:XML = new XML(evt.target.data);
               trace(xml);
          }
     }
}

Ok, a quick run through.

• We declare an array with 2 person objects we want to send. And feed it to the sendJSON function.
• Encode our JSON string using the static encode method of the JSON class from the corelib framework.
• Declare a URLVariables object which we are going to use to store our post variables in it. Behind the scenes its going to parse a correct httpbody and header message needed to transfer over http.
• We declare our urlRequest which we tell which url you need to load, what the method will be how we will sending our data , in our case POST, and finally in the data property we put the urlVariables object.
• We declare our URLLoader which is going to do the request to the page and in our case return an xml
• When we have an eventListener listening to the URLLoader object on complete you will get some data in return for it when that function is called. We cast it to XML an trace that.

And that’s how we send JSON over http with Actionscript 3.

Now let’s try the same in Cocoa Touch

NSMutableArray *arrayDict = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
Person *person1 = [[Person alloc] initWithName:@"Lord Vader" andAge:23];
Person *person2 = [[Person alloc] initWithName:@"Qui-Gon Jinn" andAge:51];
[arrayDict addObject:[person1 getDictionary]];
[arrayDict addObject:[person2 getDictionary]];
[person1 release];
[person2 release];
 
SBJSON *json = [SBJSON alloc];
 
NSString *jsonString = [json stringWithObject:arrayDict error:nil];
[arrayDict release];
[json release];
 
NSMutableURLRequest *request = [[NSMutableURLRequest alloc] init];
 
NSString *post = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"&json=%@",jsonString];
NSData *postData = [post dataUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding allowLossyConversion:NO];
 
[request setURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://localhost/iphone/json/array2xml.php"]];
[request setHTTPMethod:@"POST"];
[request setValue:@"application/x-www-form-urlencoded" forHTTPHeaderField:@"content-type"];
[request setHTTPBody:postData];
 
NSURLResponse *urlResponse;
 
NSData *data = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:request returningResponse:&urlResponse error:nil];
[request release];
NSString *jsonData = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:data encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
 
NSLog(@"%@",jsonData);
[jsonData release];

So first of all, we do need a project setup with the JSON framework (used in the previous tutorial).

So the first 7 lines of code doesn’t have anything to do with json but its just our data we are going to encode to json and send over to our backend server. But there are a couple of rules we have to keep in mind. And the most important rule is you cannot encode NSObjects to JSON. You have to use NSDictionary instead! When we open the JSON framework documentation ( included in the .dmg file) we can see the conversian table.

Objective-C types are mapped to JSON types and back in the following way:

* NSNull -> Null -> NSNull
* NSString -> String -> NSMutableString
* NSArray -> Array -> NSMutableArray
* NSDictionary -> Object -> NSMutableDictionary
* NSNumber (-initWithBool:) -> Boolean -> NSNumber -initWithBool:
* NSNumber -> Number -> NSDecimalNumber

So In our case we have a value object of the type Person but we cant encode that to JSON. What I did instead was add a method to the Person class that will return an NSDictionary containing the values from the Person objects assigned to the key’s with the exact names as the object property’s.

//Person.h
-(NSDictionary *)getDictionary;
//Person.m
-(NSDictionary *)getDictionary{
return [NSDictionary dictionaryWithObjectsAndKeys:self.name, @"name", [NSNumber numberWithInt:self.age], @"age", nil];
}

Add these lines of code to the Person.h & Person.m class.
What it does is very simple, return an Object of type NSDictionary with the values and properties of the Person class.
(note: that you have to convert the integer age to an Object of type NSNumber).

Now back to our code. We instantiate an object of type NSMutableArray where we are going to keep all our dictionary’s. We make our person Objects and  call the getDictionary method on it and push it into our previously created array.
You can release those objects because we don’t will be needing them anymore now.

Next step in the process will be to encode our array to JSON.
We allocate an object of type SBJSON.
we use the method stringWithObject:error: on it to convert our array to a JSON String, and store it in a NSString object.
We don’t need the array or the json object anymore so we can release that as well.

So now we have our string we want to send to our backend service. We are going to send it the same way like we did in actionscript using HTTP request (POST). It’s a little bit more difficult than in actionscript, and that’s simply because actionscript does a little bit more work under the hood that we have to do for ourselves in objective-C.

So what we need 4 things for our request object

- the url of the backend service (obviously)
- the http method ( POST in our case )
- the http body containing our data
- We need to set the value of 1 http header field ( content-type )

So first we are going to make our http body which is going to hold up our data we want to send.

We format a string with the property’s like this:

&key=value,key=value,..

if we use the function stringWithFormat: we can add directives which we can add as a parameter that are copied directly to the result. But our http body expects an object of type NSData so we need to convert our string to an NSData object which we do by using the method dataUsingEncoding:NSASCIIStringEncoding allowLossyConversion:NO on our string. Using the ascii encoding and not allowing it to lossy conversion.

So fill in the right values to the right properties of our request object.

Make a pointer for urlResponse since we are getting an xml back from the backend service. And the next lines of code I already discussed in my previous tutorial about JSON. So I’m not going to run through it again.

So the key principle is to setup your Http Request for POST right, which in objective-C you have to do for yourself.

The usercase that I came in contact with the most was, get something out of a database with php convert it to amf with amfphp or weborb and send it over to flash. So that’s the usercase I want to take as an example to do the comparison. So what is my setup ?

Mysql: Data -> php: encode json -> http -> obj-c: decode json

I’m going to keep it all as simple as possible. Just to give you a head start on what could be done.

So for the backend we have our mysql db (”iphone” in my case)

CREATE TABLE 'persons' (
    'id' int(11) NOT NULL auto_increment,
    'name' varchar(255) NOT NULL,
    'age' int(5) NOT NULL,
    PRIMARY KEY  ('id')
) ENGINE=MyISAM  DEFAULT CHARSET=latin1 AUTO_INCREMENT=5 ;
 
INSERT INTO 'persons' VALUES (1, 'Hans', 32);
INSERT INTO 'persons' VALUES (2, 'John', 12);
INSERT INTO 'persons' VALUES (3, 'Zaki', 34);
INSERT INTO 'persons' VALUES (4, 'Dr. Cox', 88);

And for our php we have:

$link = mysql_pconnect("localhost", "root", "root") or die("Could not connect");
mysql_select_db("iphone") or die("Could not select database");
 
$arr = array();
$rs = mysql_query("SELECT name, age FROM persons");
 
while($obj = mysql_fetch_object($rs)) {
	$arr[] = $obj;
}
 
echo json_encode($arr);

Whatever backend you use it doesn’t matter as long as it useses the http protocol and the json format to transfer your data from the database. You can get the example to work.

package
{
    import com.adobe.serialization.json.JSON;
 
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.events.Event;
    import flash.net.URLLoader;
    import flash.net.URLRequest;
 
    public class MainJSON extends Sprite
    {
        public function MainJSON()
        {
            var loader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
 
            loader.load(new URLRequest( "http://andyj.be/iphone/json/persons.php" ));
            loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, decodeJSON) ;
        }
        private function decodeJSON(evt:Event):void {
            var persons:Array = JSON.decode( URLLoader( evt.target ).data );
 
            for (var key:Object in persons) {
                var tmp : Object = persons[key];
                var person : Person = new Person(tmp.name,int( tmp.age ));
                trace( person );
            }
        }
    }
}

*note: you must include the corelib api ( http://code.google.com/p/as3corelib/ ) because decoding and encoding JSON isn’t part of the flash player runtime.

So a quick overview of our AS3 code, we intantiate our URLLoader (that we provide with our link to our webservice) which is going to handle the loading of our data from the webservice. Just define an eventListener on “complete“. In that function were just going to decode our data with the static function “decode” provided by the JSON class ( from the corelib api ). Because we are parsing an array from our webservice we should get an Array in return from the static function.

Each object in the array has a key ( which is just a simple integer in reality ( so you could use a Three-expression for loop if you want) ) if we take the value for the key we provide we get our object in return which has a name and age property. Just put those values in our person Object et voila, were finished.

Ok now for our objective-c side of the story, just like in Actionscript, the cocoa framework doesn’t provide a JSON decoding and encoding API. But Stig Brautaset provided us with a JSON framework that is fairly easy to implement.

You have to do a couple of things before we can continue.

1. Download the DMG http://json-framework.googlecode.com/files/JSON_2.1.1.dmg
2. Copy the directory /Volumes/JSON_2.1.1/SDKs/JSON to ~/Library/SDKs/JSON

that wasn’t so hard was it ?.. Ok, create a window based application like we did in our previous examples and before we continue providing our appdelegate class with code we have to set a couple paramaters (just like we would add the corelib swc to the build path of our actionscript project in flex). We have to set 2 paramaters in our info panel ( apple-key+I ) in the build tab( note: make sure you select the “all configurations” under configuration so you don’t have to worry about the difference between debugging and releasing.

a. “Additional SDKs” must be set to “$HOME/Library/SDKs/JSON/$(PLATFORM_NAME).sdk”
b. “Other Linker Flags” must be set to “-ObjC -ljson”

So the JSON-framework is now a part of our current project. Just to be sure its working open up your appdelegate class and add the following line code at the top of your class.

#import
#import "Person.h"

*note: we add Person.h because we are going to need it further on in the project but it has no relation to the JSON framework.

Now try to build your project( apple-key + B ) if you don’t get any errors you than your setup to go. If you do get any errors, you can always post them as a comment or mail me and I will see what I can do. In the DMG you downloaded is an INSTALL and README file, you can always check those files if you still get errors.

So assuming were setup and we don’t get any errors. We continue with our example. Just add the following code to the applicationDidFinishLaunching Method.

NSURLResponse *urlResponse;
 
NSData *data = [NSURLConnection sendSynchronousRequest:[NSURLRequest requestWithURL:[NSURL URLWithString:@"http://andyj.be/iphone/json/persons.php"]] returningResponse:&urlResponse error:nil];
 
NSString *jsonData = [[NSString alloc] initWithData:data encoding:NSUTF8StringEncoding];
 
SBJSON *json = [SBJSON alloc];
NSArray *jsonArray = [json objectWithString:jsonData error:nil];
 
for (int i=0; i<[jsonArray count]; i++) {
    id tmp = [jsonArray objectAtIndex:i];
    Person *p = [[Person alloc] initWithName:[tmp valueForKey:@"name"] andAge: [[tmp valueForKey:@"age"] intValue]];
    NSLog(@"%@ is %i years old.", [p name], [p age]);
    [p release];
}
 
[json release];
[jsonData release];

If you take a glance at the code, it might be a little strange at first sight. But if you give it a better look you will see that it’s actually pretty much the same path we are following as we would do in AS3.

We start by instantiating a pointer to urlResponse of type NSURLResponse because we are going to need that pointer in the next line of code. What it actually does is just addresses a pointer to a variable, it will be necessary for when we load some data, so that we can provide this pointer to the function we want to load data with.

Next we instantiate a variable called data of the type NSData that’s because were calling the class method sendSynchronousRequest:returningResponse:error: of the NSURLConnection object which will return an object of the type NSData. So since we use a class method we don’t need to allocate an object of the NSURLConnection class, so we need to feed the function 3 paramaters, the first is a NSURLRequest which we need to provide with a NSURL through the requestWithURL method, and in the NSURL we need to provide the actual url to the webservice through the function URLWithString. We need to provide the returningResponse with the earlier created urlResponse pointer, note that we use and ampersand “&” in front of the variable which denotes pass-by-reference. (I’m not going to go deeper on that topic but if you want to know more about it just use this article as a start point http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reference_(C%2B%2B) it’s for c++ but has the sample principle.)

Since our JSON class needs a string for decoding our json we need to convert our data into a string we do that by using the initWithData:encoding: method from the NSString class we provide that the data and for encoding use the NSUTF8StringEncoding constant.

Now we have our data ready to be decoded we just have to allocate a variable of the type SBJSON which is a class from the JSON framework. And just like in actionscript we know that it will be an array so we declare a variable jsonArray of the type NSArray ( note: if you don’t know for sure which type it will be you can use “id” instead of NSArray than you will be sure your program doesn’t crash at runtime, but in our case I know I’m sure!) for decoding we just use the objectWithString:error: method and provide nil for error since we don’t care for any errors now.

Make a for loop that iterates through every object in the array. And in every object there will be a key and a value for each property in the json string ( just like in actionscript).

Allocate youre Person object and juse the function initWithName:andAge: to put the values of the tempory object into you person object. ( note, that we need to convert the age object into an intValue ( just like we did in the XML example ) because in our backend they all are strings ).

Release the allocated objects from the memory, eh voila. Open your debug log window and see the magic happen. In the next tutorial I will be discussion how to use json to send data from the iphone to the backend.

In the mean time a happy Christmas to all of you.

So for this tutorial we are going to stick with the NSXMLParser class.
Actually the NSXMLParser isn’t so bad at all if you start working with it.
The basic idea behind the NSXMLParser class is that it iterates through every element in your XML.
And it uses a Delegate to invoke the methods needed but that will become more clear when we dive into it.

So our user story will be: we have an XML of a couple of person with there name and an attribute with there age, so you can simple use the classes from my previous examples.

#Actionscript
var xmlLoader : URLLoader = new URLLoader();
xmlLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE,xmlLoadComplete);
xmlLoader.load(new URLRequest("http://andyj.be/iphone/examples/xml/persons.xml"));
 
private function xmlLoadComplete( e : Event ) : void
{
      var persons : Array = new Array(); // Our Array that we want to fill up with Person Objects
      var xml : XML = XML( e.target.data );
      for each( var xmlPerson : XML in xml.person )
      {
          var person : Person = new Person( xmlPerson.name, xmlPerson.@age );
          persons.push( person );
      }
      trace( persons );
}

So very straight forward, make an URLLoader object, put an addEventListener for Complete on it load the url. And in the function we make a new array where we are going to store our objects in it. Retrieve the xml data from the target of the event (don’t forgot to cast it to XML) and iterate it with a for loop on xml. person which will loop over every element “person”. Make an object of type Person and put the values in it. Push it into the array. Et voila in about 10 lines of code we have our xml stored into objects.

So lets bring that to Objective-c

We want to make use of our Person class early created it has 2 property’s that we need to fill up with the values from the xml so we don’t need to make any changes to that class so if your following. I will be providing code for this example as it may be more readable in XCode than it is on my blog. So if your just interested in my current post you don’t have to worry about the Person class and just download the project at the bottom of my article.

So lets continue shall we.. I’ve mentioned that NSXMLParser uses Delegate to invoke his methods. So we there are 3 methods we should implement to our class.

- (void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser didStartElement:(NSString *)elementName namespaceURI:(NSString *)namespaceURI qualifiedName:(NSString *)qName attributes:(NSDictionary *)attributeDict

- (void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser didEndElement:(NSString *)elementName namespaceURI:(NSString *)namespaceURI qualifiedName:(NSString *)qName

- (void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser foundCharacters:(NSString *)string

I will explain them based on the code we shall write for the example.

So for setup we make a new window-based Application project (for the iphone since were learning cocoa touch). So were going to add 2 classes the one is Person (Person.h / Person.m) that we made in a previous example, and we are going to make a new Class called “XMLController” which is going to handle the XML parsing itself so we can separate our business logic. So make a new class that with the NSObject subclass template.

//XMLController.h
#import
@class Person;
 
@interface XMLController : NSObject {
      NSMutableString *currentNodeContent;
      NSMutableArray *persons;
      NSXMLParser *parser;
      Person *currentPerson;
}
@property (readonly,retain) NSMutableArray *persons;
- (id)loadXMLByURL:(NSString *)urlString;
@end

//XMLController.m
#import "XMLController.h"
#import "Person.h"
@implementation XMLController
@synthesize persons;
- (id)loadXMLByURL:(NSString *)urlString{
      persons = [[NSMutableArray alloc] init];
      NSURL *url = [NSURL URLWithString: urlString];
      parser = [[NSXMLParser alloc] initWithContentsOfURL:url];
      parser.delegate = self;
      [parser parse];
      return self;
}
- (void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser didStartElement:(NSString *)elementName namespaceURI:(NSString *)namespaceURI qualifiedName:(NSString *)qName attributes:(NSDictionary *)attributeDict
{
      if([elementName isEqualToString:@"person"]){
            currentPerson = [Person alloc];
            currentPerson.age = [(NSString *)[attributeDict valueForKey:@"age"] intValue];
            currentNodeContent = [[NSMutableString alloc] init];
      }
}
 
- (void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser didEndElement:(NSString *)elementName namespaceURI:(NSString *)namespaceURI qualifiedName:(NSString *)qName
{
      if([elementName isEqualToString:@"name"]){
            [currentPerson setValue:currentNodeContent forKey:@"name"];
 
            [persons addObject:currentPerson];
            [currentPerson release];
            currentPerson = nil;
 
            [currentNodeContent release];
            currentNodeContent = nil;
      }
}
 
- (void)parser:(NSXMLParser *)parser foundCharacters:(NSString *)string
{
      [currentNodeContent appendString:[string stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet:[NSCharacterSet whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet]]];
}
 
@end

So in the XMLController.h file we specify our variables and methods.

• currentNodeContent is the variable we are going to store our node values into it, it is of type NSMutableString because we want the string to by dynamic so we can append strings to it rather than a simple static string.
• persons is an mutableArray where we are going to add our different person objects into it. It’s the only variable we are going to define as a property (readonly,retain) because we only want to read the array outside our class, not modify it.
• parser is our XMLParser object that is going to handle the delegates for parsing the xml
• currentPerson of type Person is going to hold the current Person values for that xml node. It will be released when its complete and added to the persons array.

- (id)loadXMLByURL:(NSString *)urlString;
is the method were adding to let our XMLController class initialze itself (like a constructor in actionscript).

On to the implementation file. We synthesize our person variable so our getter is automatically generated. Then on to the implementation for our loadXMLByURL method whe are going to allocate the persons array just like we would say in actionscript new Array();

We make a NSURL object with the string provided by the methods argument( wich contains the url ) it is the same as making an URLRequest object in actionscript.

We allocate the NSXMLParser and we instantly use the initWithContentsOfURL method which is going to load the xml from a URL. We assign our delegation class by telling the parser our delgate = self ( self = this in actionscript) which means our delegation methods will be invoked in the this class. And we return the class itself.

Now we are going to setup our 3 delegation methods mentioned earlier.
So what the NSXMLParser is going to do is iterate through every element of your xml so in our case first persons, then person, then name, then person.

The didStartElement is going to be invoked whenever a element is opened, and the didEndElement will be invoked whenever it finds a closing element in the xml.

So for our case it will be:

1. persons -> didStartElement
2. person -> didStartElement
3. name -> didStartElement
4. name -> didEndElement
5. person -> didEndElement
6. person -> didStartElement
   and so on..

So in our function we are just going to search for the elementName we want.
Notice that I don’t use Comparison operator to check if the elementName is the same as “person” like I would do in actionscript. People who have a background in java know that you cannot compare strings using the comparison operator, instead we are using the isEqualToString method.

Once we found our person element we are going to allocate our currentPerson variable because we now know that every element that follows will be a needed to store in our Person object.
Every element that has attributes in our xml will be stored in the attributeDict. The only thing we have to do now is use the method valueForKey because NSXMLParser will store the values of the attributes with the keys that are defined in the xml, but because our age property is of type int we use the NSString method intValue to convert our string to an int.

We could search for the next element we want data from that would be the element name, but instead were just going to allocate currentNodeContent (wich will collect the data between the nodes) in the same if structure. Note that it our currentNodeContent will collect all the whitespaces and newlines but we will erase that later on.

So in our didEndElement method we are going to search that elementName is equal to name .. so what happens behind the scene.

1. person -> didStartElement
2. we instantiate our currentPerson object
3. name -> didStartElement
4. foundCharacters method is invoked and will append all values it finds between the nodes to our currentNodeContent string*
5. name -> didEndElement

*note that we use stringByTrimmingCharactersInSet using the whitespaceAndNewlineCharacterSet NSCharacterSet object so that will automaticly erase whitespace and newlines.

So when our didEndElement method for element name is invoked we know that our currentNodeValue contains the data between the name nodes. So we are going to assign it to our name property of our currentPerson object. ( I could use currentPerson.name = currentNodeContent; for assigning it I use a different approach so you can see that you can assign your values in very different ways )

We add our object to our persons array and we release both currentPerson and currentNodeContent and assign it to nil. So its cleared completely and released from the memory.

Ok that’s for the parsing part of our array. Now we still have to do something with our data.

Since we made a window based Application XCode will generate an AppDelegate class in my case PersonXMLAppDelegate.h and PersonXMLAppDelegate.m

So the only thing we must do now is to edit the applicationDidFinishLaunching method so we can do something with our data ( the only thing we are going to do with it, is tracing it to the output (or Debugger console called in XCode ( shift + apple + R ))

//PersonXMLAppDelegat.m
XMLController *xmlcontr = [[XMLController alloc] loadXMLByURL:@"http://andyj.be/iphone/examples/xml/persons.xml"];
NSLog(@"%@",[xmlcontr persons]);
for (Person *p in [xmlcontr persons])
      NSLog(@"%@ is %i years old.", [p name], [p age]);

*note: don’t forget to import XMLController.h and Person.h

We allocate our XMLController class. And use the loadXMLByURL earlier created and pass it the url to our xml. In our XMLController class we defined 1 property called person that is readonly, so we can now just acces that property and trace it with NSLog. For the sake of it, I’m going to trace a string with the values of each person object separately in a for loop.

So that’s the very basics of parsing XML. If you want a more advanced tutorial you should definitely check out this article

If you want a more automated way of parsing your xml to objects you should definitely check this blog post which can save you allot of time!

download the source files for this example here

“In computer science an array is a data structure consisting of a group of elements that are accessed by indexing. In most programming languages each element has the same data type and the array occupies a contiguous area of storage.”

So we all know that when we have an array in Actionscript we don’t have to fill it up with objects of the same data type’s, we can use any data type. We’re not restricted. That’s the same in Objective-C. Except 1 little thing. In objective-C if we want to fill up an array it can only be with Objects, not primitives (like int or float, ..). So what we will do is take a couple of examples using an Array in actionscript and converting it to Objective-c. Along the way we will se what is possible and what is not, or what will be different.

So first things first.

#Actionscript
var p1 : Person = new Person("john",15);
var string : String = new String("lol");
var number : Number = 15;
 
var array : Array = new Array(p1,string,number);
trace(array); //output: [object Person],lol,15
trace(array[2]); //output: 15

So what we have done is created 3 variables 1 object of the type Person ( see the previous example ). A simple string and a number. Create an Array and put those 3 variables in the array and trace it.

So how would we do that in Objective-c

#Objective-C
Person *p1 = [[Person alloc] initWithName:@"joe" andAge:34];
NSString *string = [NSString stringWithFormat:@"This is a string"];
NSNumber *number = [NSNumber numberWithInt:4];
 
NSArray *arr = [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects:p1,string,number,nil];
NSLog(@"array : %@",arr);
NSLog(@"array object 2: %@",[mArr objectAtIndex:2]);

And our output should be:
2008-12-15 21:59:58.615 cocoatests[26361:20b] array : (
<Person: 0×524810>,
“This is a string”,
4
)
2008-12-15 21:59:58.615 cocoatests[26361:20b] array object 2: (
4
)
So what we do is exactly the same as in actionscript. Create 3 variables 1 of the type Person instantiate it with 2 parameters “joe” & 34 (as being a method defined in the interface of the Class Person ( if you want to know more about that or it is a little unclear just go back to my previous post about Objects and methods )) We make a String and A Number.

So for our “array part”. We make a new variables of the type NSArray  we allocate it to reserve space in the memory, and we immediately initialize it with some objects (being the objects created before). Doing this by using the method initWithObjects: followed by the objects we want to put in our array as a set of parameters. If you look closely enough you would see that we end our set of parameters with “nil”. This is because when we use initWithObjects, under the hood it iterates over every object until it finds nil so it knows it is at the end of the array. Everything that you put behind nil will not be pushed into your array.

So next on.. we want to add some more data to our array.

#Actionscript
array.push("foo");
array.push("bar");
array.push(12);
trace(array); //output: [object Person],lol,15,foo,bar,12

We us the push method to push new data in to our array (wich still can be of any datatype)

#Objective-C
So at our objective C side we cannot just add new data to an object of type NSArray, instead we have to use NSMutableArray. That’s because NSArray creates static arrays, and NSMutableArray creates dynamic arrays. Actually NSMutableArray is a subclass of NSArray wich adds extra functionality to NSArray such as push or remove new objects to our array.

So what we can do is create a new NSMutableArray or just push our already created array into our new NSMutableArray

#Objective-C
//Method 1
NSMutableArray *mArr = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithObjects:p1,string,number,nil];
 
//Method 2
NSMutableArray *mArr = [[NSMutableArray alloc] initWithArray:arr];
 
[mArr addObject:@"foo"];
[mArr addObject:@"bar"];
[mArr addObject:[NSNumber numberWithInt:15]];
 
NSLog(@"array : %@",mArr);

Which would result:
2008-12-15 22:24:26.883 cocoatests[26560:20b] array : (
<Person: 0×5229e0>,
“This is a string”,
4,
foo,
bar,
15
)

So what we have done is used the addObject method to add objects to our NSMutableArray. Simple as that. So for removing. We use the same principle only that in objective-c removing or replacing is better supported.

If we would like to remove the first object and the object called “foo” in actionscript we would do it like:

#Actionscript
array.splice(0,1);
array.splice(array.indexOf("foo"),1);
 
trace(array); //output: lol,15,bar,12

#Objective-C
[mArr removeObjectAtIndex:0];
[mArr removeObject:@"foo"];
 
NSLog(@"array : %@",mArr);

2008-12-15 22:39:14.451 cocoatests[26689:20b] array : (
“This is a string”,
4,
1,
15
)
if you want to know all the add/remove/replace function just go to NSMutableArray Reference
there you will find all the implementations.

So what about sorting ?

#Actionscript
var poets:Array = ["Blake", "cummings", "Angelou", "Dante"];
poets.sort(); // default sort
trace(poets); // output: Angelou,Blake,Dante,cummings
 
poets.sort(Array.CASEINSENSITIVE);
trace(poets); // output: Angelou,Blake,cummings,Dante
 
poets.sort(Array.DESCENDING | Array.CASEINSENSITIVE); // use two options
trace(poets); // output: Dante,cummings,Blake,Angelou

The Array class in Actionscript provides you with a couple of static constants that can be given as an argument to the sort method. It simply takes the array and sort it depending on the argument you pass it.

#Objective-C
NSArray *poets = [[NSArray alloc] initWithObjects:@"Blake",@"cummings",@"Angelou",@"Dante",nil];
 
NSLog(@"%@",[poets sortedArrayUsingSelector:@selector(compare:)]);
 
NSLog(@"%@",[poets sortedArrayUsingSelector:@selector(caseInsensitiveCompare:)]);
 
NSSortDescriptor *sortDescriptor = [[NSSortDescriptor alloc] initWithKey:nil ascending:NO selector:@selector(caseInsensitiveCompare:)];
NSLog(@"%@",[poets sortedArrayUsingDescriptors:[NSArray arrayWithObject:sortDescriptor]]);

So this code creates exactly the same output as we would have in actionscript.

So for starters the sorting methods we use on the array doesn’t change the array itself as it does in actionscript but it returns a new array. What we can do is instantiate a new array. But for this example as I’m only showing the output of the array i skip that.

So if we look to the reference we see that the NSArray has a couple of methods to do sorting on. I’m going to discuss the 2 most used as from my experience.

The first one is the use of selectors (Selectors are used for method invocation) we use the method sortedArrayUsingSelector and we pass the selector we want to use by telling it is a selector @selector( <your selector > ).

The compare: selector is just going to sort it A-Z / 1-10 (and is defined in NSString, NSNumber..)
what gives the same result as the default sort method in actionscript.

If we wanted to use the caseInsesitiveCompare we just use that selector ( which is defined in NSString)

No for our next example being descending / caseInsensitive we are going to make use of Descriptors which are just separated objects that describe what sorting we want to take place on our array.

For that we use the NSSortDescriptor object. We allocate it you must initialize it with a key (I use nil because we don’t need a key) we pass the NO argument to ascending and we make us of a selector caseInsensitiveCompare like we did in our previous example. Now that our object is created we want to tell the array to sort on that descriptor we use the method sortedArrayUsingDescriptors (it expects an array so we put feed it an array created with our sortDescriptor object init). If we would log that you would see that it would result in a descending / caseInsensitive output.

So that was it for array’s for now. There is a lot more to cover, if you want to see something more clearly just leave a comment, or if something isn’t clear enough, let me know!

Next topic will be XML Parsing.

It will be a series of specific topics, for the general work-flow/development I recommend you to use google or youtube. My topics will be mainly focused on developing with the iphone sdk through the eyes of an Actionscript mind.

But before we start our first topic i would like to give some basic knowledge about obj-c.
Objects
So for example we have an Object which describes some person information.

#Actionscript
package
{
     public class Person extends Object
     {
          private var _name     : String;
          private var _age    : int;
          public function Person(name:String, age:int)
          {
             _name = name;
             _age = age;
          }
          public function get name() : String
          {
             return _name;
          }
          public function get age() : int
          {
             return _age;
          }
          public function set name( value : String ) : void
          {
             _name = value;
          }
          public function set age( value : int ) : void
          {
            _age = value;
          }
     }
}
 
package {
     import Person;
     import flash.display.Sprite;
 
     public class Main extends Sprite
     {
         public function Main()
         {
         var person : Person = new Person( "John", 32 );
         trace( person.name, person.age );
         }
     }
}

So what we have done is create a very simple object where we can store 2 variables.
Which we trace in Main class, so the output would be “John 32″

Now lets convert that to Objective C

Person.h
#import
 
@interface Person : NSObject {
       NSString *name;
       int age;
}
@property (nonatomic,retain) NSString *name;
@property (readwrite) int age;
@end
 
Person.m
#import "Person.h"
 
@implementation Person
@synthesize name,age;
@end

So for the creation of objects / classes you have 2 files, the interface and the implementation. In the interface part we describe the different module variables and functions. But also the type of the object and which delegates/controls the object should implement.

Apple discourages the use of an underscore as a prefix for a private instance variable. The idea of a private prefix is largely unnecessary, as virtually all instance variables in Cocoa are protected anyway.

The asterix in front of “name” tells me the variable “name” is a pointer  (”Pointers are designed to hold memory addresses. With a pointer you can indirectly manipulate data stored in other variable.”) I’m not going to explain the in’s and out’s of pointers but if you like to read more about it i suggest you to read this page (its written in C but has the same principles) http://home.netcom.com/~tjensen/ptr/pointers.htm

We declare the property’s and define their parameters. If you like to know more about the different parameters i used (http://www.cocoacast.com/?q=node/103)

In the implementation file we synthesize our variables: The @synthesize directive generates accessor methods for us. (  at the given parameters which are declared by the property )

Main Application (Just choose the template for a window based application, i’m only going to discuss the creation of our Person object) (just replace the applicationDidFinishLaunching method)

- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(UIApplication *)application {
 
     // Override point for customization after application launch
     [window makeKeyAndVisible];
 
     //init Person
     Person *person = [Person alloc];
     person.age = 32;
     //person.name = @"John";
     [person setName:@"John"];
     NSLog(@"%@ %i",person.name,[person age]);
     [person release];
     NSLog(@"%@ %i",person.name,[person age]);
}

So as we can see we need to allocate the variable in the memory,
as we are familiar with in actionscript

New Person(); -> is the same als [Person alloc] (if we want to call the constructor we normally would use [[Person alloc] init])

Since objective C 2 we can access our variables with -dot notation or you can either use the two accessor forms

NSLog is the equivalent of trace in Actionscript .. we define what types we want to output and just pass the paramaters.

@”" defines a string
%@ lets the formatter know he would expect a string
%i lets the formatter know he would expect an integer

if we release the object from the memory it can not be accessed any more

output should be:

2008-12-02 12:21:42.323 basics[1781:20b] John 32

objc[1781]: FREED(id): message age sent to freed object=0×522220

Methods

So we are going to continue our previous example I’m going to add 3 functions

#Actionscript
public function myNameLength() : int
{
     return _name.length;
}
public function myBodyMassIndex( length : Number, weight : Number ) : String
{
     return "My BMI is: " + roundTo((weight / (length * length)),2);
}
private static function roundTo( value : Number, n : Number ) : Number
{
     var aft : int = Math.pow(10, n);
     return Math.round(value*aft)/aft;
}

#Objective C
Person.h
#import
 
@interface Person : NSObject {
// variables
}
//properties
-(int)myNameLength;
-(NSString *)myBodyMassIndexWithLength:(float)length weight:(float)weight;
+(float)roundToWithValue:(float)bmi DigitsAfterPoint:(int)dap;
@end
Person.m
#import "Person.h"
#import "Math.h"
 
@implementation Person
@synthesize name,age;
-(int)myNameLength{
     return [name length];
}
-(NSString *)myBodyMassIndexWithLength:(float)length weight:(float)weight{
     float bmi = (weight/(length*length));
     return [NSString stringWithFormat:@"My BMI is: %f - rounded BMI: %f",bmi,[Person roundToWithValue:bmi DigitsAfterPoint:2]];
}
+(float)roundToWithValue:(float)bmi DigitsAfterPoint:(int)dap{
     float aft = pow(10,dap);
     return round(bmi*aft)/aft;
}
@end

So we have 3 functions 2 public functions 1 static in Actionscript.

At the Objective-C side of the story

We have 3 methods 2 “instance” Methods and 1 “class” Method(The minus sign before (int) indicates that this method is an “instance” method. If it were a plus, it would indicate that it is a class method. You could see it more or less like public/static functions in Actionscript)
We usually define them under the @property’s in the interface

We can’t actually declare if our methods are private or public and we don’t have to specify a “separate method name” we can just add our parameters. As seen clearly in the second and third method.

for the return value we use a class Method(stringWithFormat) of the class NSString to format our string,

stringWithFormat:@"My BMI is: %f - rounded BMI: %f",bmi,[Person roundToWithValue:bmi DigitsAfterPoint:2]

@” <- start of the string
%f <- expects a float (format specifiers)

most common
%@ Object
%d, %i signed int
%u unsigned int
%f float/double

so for all the format specifiers: we add a parameter.

For the last function we specified a class method.
that uses some functions of the Math.h ( so don’t forget the #import “Math.h” at the top)

NSLog(@"%i",[person myNameLength]);
NSLog(@"%@",[person myBodyMassIndexWithLength:1.7 weight:51]);
NSLog(@"%f",[Person roundToWithValue:20.796434234 DigitsAfterPoint:3]);

So now if we add those NSLog statements to our applicationDidFinishLaunching method you get the exact logs

We use [<our object> <ourmethod>:<paramaters] to access our “instance” methods
- like shown in the first 2 NSLog statements

We use [<our Class> ourmethod:<paramaters] to access our “class” methods
- like shown in the last 2 NSLog statements

So that’s it for now,See you in a next tutorial

the as3 api now only concludes searching and fetching movie information.

its as easy as just to

var imdbSearch:SearchIMDB = new SearchIMDB(”scrubs”,20);
imdbSearch.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE,serviceLoaded);
imdbSearch.load();

and for fetching a movie you can just do

movie = new Movie(<enter movie id here>);
movie.addEventListener(MovieEvent.LOADED,movieComplete);
movie.load();

Try not to put in a loop of fetching 500 movies at the same time because it will overload your internet connection. I did a couple of tests (try it out here) (srcview) i also did test to fetch movie information 1 at the time but it goes like 50% (avg) faster if you just request all at the same time ( just respect a golden rule .. “don’t overdo it” )

you can download the source files here

you can download the php source files here

note that if you want to use the code that my server is only there for testing purpose and if you do want to setup you own project just copy the files to you php server and change the link. I can only keep my server online as long as it can handle traffic

What it does is that it encrypts the bytearray provided by the zip API with RC4, and in the test application you can see that it writes the file to the hard disk. It is not compatible to open in windows/mac environment. But that just my intention, only to open it in flash ( if provided the right key off-course ). Maybe a nice way to secure/compress your assets in 1 file.

my latest test on my mac ( 2.2ghz, 2gb ram) concluded that it could parse/decrypt +500kb/s
so be careful with very big files
I’m open for suggestions and if you find any bugs just let me know

(in the zip there is also an SWFParser class from Denis V. Chumakov it comes in handy if you want to parse an swf-bytearray)

download source code

for the test code just look in the ZipSecureXML_test.as file and you will find out how to load/save an encrypted zip file