The flash.net package contains package-level functions for opening a new browser window, sending a URL request to a server, and dealing with class aliases.
Public Methods
 FunctionDefined By
  
Looks up a class that previously had an alias registered through a call to the registerClassAlias() method.
flash.net
  
navigateToURL(request:URLRequest, window:String = null):void
Opens or replaces a window in the application that contains the Flash Player container (usually a browser).
flash.net
  
registerClassAlias(aliasName:String, classObject:Class):void
Preserves the class (type) of an object when the object is encoded in Action Message Format (AMF).
flash.net
  
Sends a URL request to a server, but ignores any response.
flash.net
Function detail
getClassByAlias()function
public function getClassByAlias(aliasName:String):Class

Looks up a class that previously had an alias registered through a call to the registerClassAlias() method.

This method does not interact with the flash.utils.getDefinitionByName() method.

Parameters

aliasName:String — The alias to find.

Returns
Class — The class associated with the given alias. If not found, an exception will be thrown.

Throws
ReferenceError — The alias was not registered.

See also

navigateToURL()function 
public function navigateToURL(request:URLRequest, window:String = null):void

Opens or replaces a window in the application that contains the Flash Player container (usually a browser).

Note: For local content running in a browser, calls to the navigateToURL() method that specify a "javascript:" pseudo-protocol (via a URLRequest object passed as the first parameter) are only permitted if the SWF file and the containing web page (if there is one) are in the local-trusted security sandbox. Some browsers do not support using the javascript protocol with the navigateToURL() method. Instead, consider using the call() method of the ExternalInterface API to invoke JavaScript methods within the enclosing HTML page.

In AIR, content running in a non-application security sandbox can only call this method in response to a mouse-down, mouse-up or keyboard event.

AIR restricts which URL schemes you can use in the URLRequest object passed to the navigateToURL() method, based on the sandbox of the content initiating the request. The following URL schemes are allowed:

Sandbox typeAllowed URL schemes
Applicationhttp, https, file, mailto, app, app-storage
Remotehttp, https, mailto
Local-with-filefile, mailto
Local-with-networkhttp, https, mailto
Local-trustedhttp, https, file, mailto

For more information, see the following:

Parameters

request:URLRequest — A URLRequest object that specifies the URL to navigate to.
 
window:String (default = null) — The browser window or HTML frame in which to display the document indicated by the request parameter. You can enter the name of a specific window or use one of the following values:
  • "_self" specifies the current frame in the current window.
  • "_blank" specifies a new window.
  • "_parent" specifies the parent of the current frame.
  • "_top" specifies the top-level frame in the current window.

If you do not specify a value for this parameter, a new empty window is created. In the stand-alone player, you can either specify a new ("_blank") window or a named window. The other values don't apply.

Note: When code in a SWF file that is running in the local-with-filesystem sandbox calls the navigateToURL() function and specifies a custom window name for the window parameter, the window name is transfered into a random name. The name is in the form "_flashXXXXXXXX", where each X represents a random hexadecimal digit. Within the same session (until you close the containing browser window), if you call the function again and specify the same name for the window parameter, the same random string is used.


Throws
SecurityError — This error is thrown in the following situations:
  • Local untrusted SWF files may not communicate with the Internet. You can avoid this situation by reclassifying this SWF file as local-with-networking or trusted.
  • A navigate operation attempted to evaluate a scripting pseudo-URL, but the containing document (usually an HTML document in a browser) is from a sandbox to which you do not have access. You can avoid this situation by specifying allowScriptAccess="always" in the containing document.
  • You cannot navigate the special windows "_self", "_top", or "_parent" if your SWF file is contained by an HTML page that has set the allowScriptAccess to "none", or to "sameDomain" when the domains of the HTML file and the SWF file do not match.
  • You cannot navigate a window with a nondefault name from within a SWF file that is in the local-with-filesystem sandbox.

See also


Example

The following example opens the URL http://www.adobe.com in a new browser window and passes data about a user session, captured in a URLVariables object, to the web server.
package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.net.navigateToURL;
    import flash.net.URLRequest;
    import flash.net.URLVariables;

    public class NavigateToURLExample extends Sprite {

        public function NavigateToURLExample() {
            var url:String = "http://www.adobe.com";
            var variables:URLVariables = new URLVariables();
            variables.exampleSessionId = new Date().getTime();
            variables.exampleUserLabel = "Your Name";
            var request:URLRequest = new URLRequest(url);
            request.data = variables;
            try {            
                navigateToURL(request);
            }
            catch (e:Error) {
                // handle error here
            }
        }
    }
}
registerClassAlias()function 
public function registerClassAlias(aliasName:String, classObject:Class):void

Preserves the class (type) of an object when the object is encoded in Action Message Format (AMF). When you encode an object into AMF, this function saves the alias for its class, so that you can recover the class when decoding the object. If the encoding context did not register an alias for an object's class, the object is encoded as an anonymous object. Similarly, if the decoding context does not have the same alias registered, an anonymous object is created for the decoded data.

LocalConnection, ByteArray, SharedObject, NetConnection and NetStream are all examples of classes that encode objects in AMF.

The encoding and decoding contexts do not need to use the same class for an alias; they can intentionally change classes, provided that the destination class contains all of the members that the source class serializes.

Parameters

aliasName:String — The alias to use.
 
classObject:Class — The class associated with the given alias.


Throws
TypeError — If either parameter is null.

See also


Example

This example uses the registerClassAlias() function to register an alias (com.example.eg) for the class ExampleClass. Because an alias is registered for the class, the object is able to be deserialized as an instance of ExampleClass, and the code outputs true. If the registerClassAlias() call were removed, the code would output false.
package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.net.registerClassAlias;
    import flash.utils.ByteArray;

    public class RegisterClassAliasExample extends Sprite {
        public function RegisterClassAliasExample() {
            registerClassAlias("com.example.eg", ExampleClass);
            var eg1:ExampleClass = new ExampleClass();
            var ba:ByteArray = new ByteArray();
            ba.writeObject(eg1);
            ba.position = 0;
            var eg2:* = ba.readObject();
            trace(eg2 is ExampleClass); // true
        }
    }
}

class ExampleClass {}
sendToURL()function 
public function sendToURL(request:URLRequest):void

Sends a URL request to a server, but ignores any response.

To examine the server response, use the URLLoader.load() method instead.

For Flash Player 9 and later, you can prevent a SWF file from using this method by setting the allowNetworking parameter of the the object and embed tags in the HTML page that contains the SWF content.

For more information, see the Flash Player 9 Security white paper at http://www.adobe.com/go/fp9_0_security.

Parameters

request:URLRequest — A URLRequest object specifying the URL to send data to.


Throws
SecurityError — Local untrusted SWF files cannot communicate with the Internet. You can avoid this situation by reclassifying this SWF file as local-with-networking or trusted.

Example

The following example passes data about a user session, captured in a URLVariables object, to the application at http://www.yourDomain.com/application.jsp.
 package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.net.URLRequest;
    import flash.net.URLVariables;
    import flash.net.sendToURL;

    public class SendToURLExample extends Sprite {

        public function SendToURLExample() {
            var url:String = "http://www.yourDomain.com/application.jsp";
            var variables:URLVariables = new URLVariables();
            variables.sessionId = new Date().getTime();
            variables.userLabel = "Your Name";

            var request:URLRequest = new URLRequest(url);
            request.data = variables;
            trace("sendToURL: " + request.url + "?" + request.data);
            try {
                sendToURL(request);
            }
            catch (e:Error) {
                // handle error here
            }
        }
    }
}