Adobe® Flex® 4 Language Reference
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flash.net 
URLRequest 
Packageflash.net
Classpublic final class URLRequest
InheritanceURLRequest Inheritance Object

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

The URLRequest class captures all of the information in a single HTTP request. URLRequest objects are passed to the load() methods of the Loader, URLStream, and URLLoader classes, and to other loading operations, to initiate URL downloads. They are also passed to the upload() and download() methods of the FileReference class.

A SWF file in the local-with-filesystem sandbox may not load data from, or provide data to, a resource that is in the network sandbox.

By default, the calling SWF file and the URL you load must be in the same domain. For example, a SWF file at www.adobe.com can load data only from sources that are also at www.adobe.com. To load data from a different domain, place a URL policy file on the server hosting the data.

However, in Adobe AIR, content in the application security sandbox (content installed with the AIR application) is not restricted by these security limitations. For content running in Adobe AIR, files in the application security sandbox can access URLs using any of the following URL schemes:

  • http and https
  • file
  • app-storage
  • app

Content running in Adobe AIR that is not in the application security sandbox observes the same restrictions as content running in the browser (in Flash Player), and loading is governed by the content's domain and any permissions granted in URL policy files.

For more information related to security, see the Flash Player Developer Center Topic: Security.

View the examples

See also



Public Properties
 PropertyDefined By
  AIR-only authenticate : Boolean
Specifies whether authentication requests should be handled (true or not (false) for this request.
URLRequest
  AIR-only cacheResponse : Boolean
Specifies whether successful response data should be cached for this request.
URLRequest
 Inheritedconstructor : Object
A reference to the class object or constructor function for a given object instance.
Object
  contentType : String
The MIME content type of the content in the the data property.
URLRequest
  data : Object
An object containing data to be transmitted with the URL request.
URLRequest
  digest : String
A string that uniquely identifies the signed Adobe platform component to be stored to (or retrieved from) the Flash Player cache.
URLRequest
  AIR-only followRedirects : Boolean
Specifies whether redirects are to be followed (true) or not (false).
URLRequest
  AIR-only idleTimeout : Number
Specifies the idle timeout value (in milliseconds) for this request.
URLRequest
  AIR-only manageCookies : Boolean
Specifies whether the HTTP protocol stack should manage cookies for this request.
URLRequest
  method : String
Controls the HTTP form submission method.
URLRequest
 Inheritedprototype : Object
[static] A reference to the prototype object of a class or function object.
Object
  requestHeaders : Array
The array of HTTP request headers to be appended to the HTTP request.
URLRequest
  url : String
The URL to be requested.
URLRequest
  AIR-only useCache : Boolean
Specifies whether the local cache should be consulted before this URLRequest fetches data.
URLRequest
  AIR-only userAgent : String
Specifies the user-agent string to be used in the HTTP request.
URLRequest
Public Methods
 MethodDefined By
  
URLRequest(url:String = null)
Creates a URLRequest object.
URLRequest
 Inherited
Indicates whether an object has a specified property defined.
Object
 Inherited
Indicates whether an instance of the Object class is in the prototype chain of the object specified as the parameter.
Object
 Inherited
Indicates whether the specified property exists and is enumerable.
Object
 Inherited
Sets the availability of a dynamic property for loop operations.
Object
 Inherited
Returns the string representation of this object, formatted according to locale-specific conventions.
Object
 Inherited
Returns the string representation of the specified object.
Object
 Inherited
Returns the primitive value of the specified object.
Object
Property Detail
AIR-only 

authenticate

property
authenticate:Boolean

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0

Specifies whether authentication requests should be handled (true or not (false) for this request. If false, authentication challenges return an HTTP error.

The supported authentication methods are:

  • Windows—HTTP Basic/Digest, Windows Integrated Authentication (including NTLM and Kerberos), SSL Certificate Authentication.
  • Mac—HTTP Basic/Digest, NTLM, SSL Certificate Authentication.

Note:The FileReference.upload(), FileReference.download(), and HTMLLoader.load() methods do not support the URLRequest.authenticate property.

The default value is true.



Implementation
    public function get authenticate():Boolean
    public function set authenticate(value:Boolean):void

Throws
SecurityError — The caller is not in the AIR application security sandbox.

See also

AIR-only 

cacheResponse

property 
cacheResponse:Boolean

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0

Specifies whether successful response data should be cached for this request. When set to true, the AIR application uses the operating system's HTTP cache.

Note:The HTMLLoader.load() method does not support the URLRequest.cacheResponse property.

The default value is true.



Implementation
    public function get cacheResponse():Boolean
    public function set cacheResponse(value:Boolean):void

Throws
SecurityError — The caller is not in the AIR application security sandbox.

See also

contentType

property 
contentType:String

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

The MIME content type of the content in the the data property.

The default value is application/x-www-form-urlencoded.

Note:The FileReference.upload(), FileReference.download(), and HTMLLoader.load() methods do not support the URLRequest.contentType property.

When sending a POST request, the values of the contentType and data properties must correspond properly. The value of the contentType property instructs servers on how to interpret the value of the data property.

  • If the value of the data property is a URLVariables object, the value of contentType must be application/x-www-form-urlencoded.
  • If the value of the data property is any other type, the value of contentType should indicate the type of the POST data that will be sent (which is the binary or string data contained in the value of the data property).
  • For FileReference.upload(), the Content-Type of the request is set automatically to multipart/form-data, and the value of the contentType property is ignored.

In Flash Player 10 and later, if you use a multipart Content-Type (for example "multipart/form-data") that contains an upload (indicated by a "filename" parameter in a "content-disposition" header within the POST body), the POST operation is subject to the security rules applied to uploads:

  • The POST operation must be performed in response to a user-initiated action, such as a mouse click or key press.
  • If the POST operation is cross-domain (the POST target is not on the same server as the SWF file that is sending the POST request), the target server must provide a URL policy file that permits cross-domain access.

Also, for any multipart Content-Type, the syntax must be valid (according to the RFC2046 standards). If the syntax appears to be invalid, the POST operation is subject to the security rules applied to uploads.



Implementation
    public function get contentType():String
    public function set contentType(value:String):void

See also

data

property 
data:Object

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

An object containing data to be transmitted with the URL request.

This property is used in conjunction with the method property. When the value of method is GET, the value of data is appended to the value of URLRequest.url, using HTTP query-string syntax. When the method value is POST (or any value other than GET), the value of data is transmitted in the body of the HTTP request.

The URLRequest API offers binary POST support and support for URL-encoded variables, as well as support for strings. The data object can be a ByteArray, URLVariables, or String object.

The way in which the data is used depends on the type of object used:

  • If the object is a ByteArray object, the binary data of the ByteArray object is used as POST data. For GET, data of ByteArray type is not supported. Also, data of ByteArray type is not supported for FileReference.upload() and FileReference.download().
  • If the object is a URLVariables object and the method is POST, the variables are encoded using x-www-form-urlencoded format and the resulting string is used as POST data. An exception is a call to FileReference.upload(), in which the variables are sent as separate fields in a multipart/form-data post.
  • If the object is a URLVariables object and the method is GET, the URLVariables object defines variables to be sent with the URLRequest object.
  • Otherwise, the object is converted to a string, and the string is used as the POST or GET data.

This data is not sent until a method, such as navigateToURL() or FileReference.upload(), uses the URLRequest object.

Note: The value of contentType must correspond to the type of data in the data property. See the note in the description of the contentType property.



Implementation
    public function get data():Object
    public function set data(value:Object):void

See also


Example  ( How to use this example )
The following example opens the remote application hosted at http://www.[yourDomain].com/application.jsp in a new browser window and passes data about a user session, captured in a URLVariables object, to the application.

Highlights of the example follow:

  1. The constructor function creates a URLRequest instance named request, taking the URL of the remote application as a parameter.
  2. A URLVariables object is created and two of its properties are assigned values.
  3. The URLVariables object is assigned to the data property of the URLRequest object.
  4. The example calls navigateToURL, which opens a new browser window to the remote application's URL.

Note: To run the example, the remote application URL in the example must be replaced with a working URL. Additionally, you would need server code to process the information captured by Flash Player in the URLVariables object.

package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.net.navigateToURL;
    import flash.net.URLRequest;
    import flash.net.URLVariables;

    public class URLVariablesExample extends Sprite {

        public function URLVariablesExample() {
            var url:String = "http://www.[yourDomain].com/application.jsp";
            var request:URLRequest = new URLRequest(url);
            var variables:URLVariables = new URLVariables();
            variables.exampleSessionId = new Date().getTime();
            variables.exampleUserLabel = "guest";
            request.data = variables;
            navigateToURL(request);
        }
    }
}

digest

property 
digest:String

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9.0.115.0, Flash Lite 4

A string that uniquely identifies the signed Adobe platform component to be stored to (or retrieved from) the Flash Player cache. An Adobe platform component is a signed file (a SWZ file) that contains SWF content that is cached persistently on a user's machine. All SWZ files are signed by Adobe. A digest corresponds to a single cached file; if you change the file in any way, its digest will change in an unpredictable way. By using a digest, you can verify the cached file across multiple domains. Two files with the same digest are the same file, and two files with different digests are not the same file. A file cannot (practically) be created to "spoof" a digest and pretend to be another digest.

The digest is based on an SHA-256 message digest algorithm (64 characters long in hexadecimal format).

For example, the Flex SDK includes a SWZ for the Flex framework (and it provides the digest string for that SWZ file). You can post this SWZ on your web server and load it in your SWF file (using the load() method of a URLLoader object). If the end user's machine already has the matching SWZ file cached, the application uses the cached SWZ file. (A SWZ file matches if its digest matches the one you provide.) Otherwise, the application downloads the SWZ file from the URL you specify.

Only set the digest parameter in a URLRequest object used in a call to the URLLoader.load() method to load a SWZ file. If the digest property of a a URLRequest object is set when it is used in other methods, the application throws an IOError exception.



Implementation
    public function get digest():String
    public function set digest(value:String):void

Throws
ArgumentError — The digest provided does not match the digest of the file that is extracted from the downloaded signed file or the signed file loaded out of the cache. The application also throws this error if the provided digest is the wrong length or contains invalid (nonhexadecimal) characters.

Example  ( How to use this example )
The following example loads a remote file into the cache. At the end of the load, the byte array contains the actual file (not the signed file). The example completes the load operation by calling loadBytes():
 
var myURLReq:URLRequest = new URLRequest();
myURLReq.url = "http://yourdomain/users/jdoe/test01/_rsc/Automated/AssetCaching_rsc/test01/rsl.swz";
myURLReq.digest = "3B0AA28C7A990385E044D80F5637FB036317BB41E044D80F5637FB036317BB41";
var myURLLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
myURLLoader.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.BINARY;
myURLLoader.addEventListener("complete", onC);

myURLLoad.load(myURLReq);

function onC(e) {
    var someLoader:Loader = new Loader();
    addChild(someLoader);
    someLoader.loadBytes((ByteArray)(myURLLoad.data)); 
}

AIR-only 

followRedirects

property 
followRedirects:Boolean

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0, Flash Lite 4

Specifies whether redirects are to be followed (true) or not (false).

Note:The FileReference.upload(), FileReference.download(), and HTMLLoader.load() methods do not support the URLRequest.followRedirects property.

The default value is true.



Implementation
    public function get followRedirects():Boolean
    public function set followRedirects(value:Boolean):void

Throws
SecurityError — The caller is not in the AIR application security sandbox.

See also

AIR-only 

idleTimeout

property 
idleTimeout:Number

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 2

Specifies the idle timeout value (in milliseconds) for this request.

The idle timeout is the amount of time the client waits for a response from the server, after the connection is established, before abandoning the request.

Note: The HTMLLoader.load() method does not support the URLRequest.idleTimeout property. The HTMLLoader class defines its own idleTimeout property.

The default value is initialized from the URLRequestDefaults.idleTimeout property.



Implementation
    public function get idleTimeout():Number
    public function set idleTimeout(value:Number):void

Throws
SecurityError — The caller is not in the AIR application security sandbox.

See also

AIR-only 

manageCookies

property 
manageCookies:Boolean

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0

Specifies whether the HTTP protocol stack should manage cookies for this request. When true, cookies are added to the request and response cookies are remembered. If false, cookies are not added to the request and response cookies are not remembered, but users can manage cookies themselves by direct header manipulation.

On Mac OS, cookies are shared with Safari. To clear cookies on Mac OS:

  1. Open Safari.
  2. Select Safari > Preferences, and click the Security panel.
  3. Click the Show Cookies button.
  4. Click the Reomove All button.

To clear cookies on Windows:

  1. Open the Internet Properties control panel, and click the General tab.
  2. Click the Delete Cookies button.

The default value is true.



Implementation
    public function get manageCookies():Boolean
    public function set manageCookies(value:Boolean):void

Throws
SecurityError — The caller is not in the AIR application security sandbox.

See also

method

property 
method:String

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Controls the HTTP form submission method.

For SWF content running in Flash Player (in the browser), this property is limited to GET or POST operations, and valid values are URLRequestMethod.GET or URLRequestMethod.POST.

For content running in Adobe AIR, you can use any string value if the content is in the application security sandbox. Otherwise, as with content running in Flash Player, you are restricted to using GET or POST operations.

For content running in Adobe AIR, when using the navigateToURL() function, the runtime treats a URLRequest that uses the POST method (one that has its method property set to URLRequestMethod.POST) as using the GET method.

Note: If running in Flash Player and the referenced form has no body, Flash Player automatically uses a GET operation, even if the method is set to URLRequestMethod.POST. For this reason, it is recommended to always include a "dummy" body to ensure that the correct method is used.

The default value is URLRequestMethod.GET.



Implementation
    public function get method():String
    public function set method(value:String):void

Throws
ArgumentError — If the value parameter is not URLRequestMethod.GET or URLRequestMethod.POST.

See also


Example  ( How to use this example )
The following example opens the remote application hosted at http://www.[yourDomain].com/application.jsp in a new browser window and passes data about a user session, captured in a URLVariables object, to the application. It explicitly sets the value of the URLRequest.method property to URLRequestMethod.POST.

Highlights of the example follow:

  1. The constructor function creates a URLRequest instance named request, taking the URL of the remote application as a parameter.
  2. A URLVariables object is created and two of its properties are assigned values.
  3. The URLVariables object is assigned to the data property of the URLRequest object.
  4. The value of the URLRequest.method property is set to URLRequestMethod.POST.
  5. The example calls navigateToURL, which opens a new browser window to the remote application's URL.

Note: To run the example, the remote application URL in the example must be replaced with a working URL. Additionally, you would need server code to process the information captured by Flash Player in the URLVariables object.

package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.net.navigateToURL;
    import flash.net.URLRequest;
    import flash.net.URLRequestMethod;
    import flash.net.URLVariables;

    public class URLRequest_method extends Sprite {

        public function URLRequest_method() {
            var url:String = "http://www.[yourDomain].com/application.jsp";
            var request:URLRequest = new URLRequest(url);
            
            var variables:URLVariables = new URLVariables();
            variables.exampleSessionId = new Date().getTime();
            variables.exampleUserLabel = "guest";
            request.data = variables;
            request.method = URLRequestMethod.POST;
            
            navigateToURL(request);
        }
    }
}

requestHeaders

property 
requestHeaders:Array

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

The array of HTTP request headers to be appended to the HTTP request. The array is composed of URLRequestHeader objects. Each object in the array must be a URLRequestHeader object that contains a name string and a value string, as follows:

     var rhArray:Array = new Array(new URLRequestHeader("Content-Type", "text/html"));
     

Flash Player and the AIR runtime impose certain restrictions on request headers; for more information, see the URLRequestHeader class description.

Not all methods that accept URLRequest parameters support the requestHeaders property, consult the documentation for the method you are calling. For example, the FileReference.upload() and FileReference.download() methods do not support the URLRequest.requestHeaders property.

Due to browser limitations, custom HTTP request headers are only supported for POST requests, not for GET requests.



Implementation
    public function get requestHeaders():Array
    public function set requestHeaders(value:Array):void

See also

url

property 
url:String

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

The URL to be requested.

Be sure to encode any characters that are either described as unsafe in the Uniform Resource Locator specification (see http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1738.html) or that are reserved in the URL scheme of the URLRequest object (when not used for their reserved purpose). For example, use "%25" for the percent (%) symbol and "%23" for the number sign (#), as in "http://www.example.com/orderForm.cfm?item=%23B-3&discount=50%25".

By default, the URL must be in the same domain as the calling file, unless the content is running in the Adobe AIR application security sandbox. If you need to load data from a different domain, put a URL policy file on the server that is hosting the data. For more information, see the description of the URLRequest class.

For content running in Adobe AIR, files in the application security sandobx — files installed with the AIR application — can access URLs using any of the following URL schemes:

  • http and https
  • file
  • app-storage
  • app

Note: IPv6 (Internet Protocol version 6) is supported in AIR and in Flash Player 9.0.115.0 and later. IPv6 is a version of Internet Protocol that supports 128-bit addresses (an improvement on the earlier IPv4 protocol that supports 32-bit addresses). You might need to activate IPv6 on your networking interfaces. For more information, see the Help for the operating system hosting the data. If IPv6 is supported on the hosting system, you can specify numeric IPv6 literal addresses in URLs enclosed in brackets ([]), as in the following.

     rtmp://[2001:db8:ccc3:ffff:0:444d:555e:666f]:1935/test
     



Implementation
    public function get url():String
    public function set url(value:String):void

Example  ( How to use this example )
The following example shows how you can dynamically load an image using the Loader class in ActionScript 3.0. Example provided by ActionScriptExamples.com.
var url:String = "http://www.helpexamples.com/flash/images/image2.jpg";
var urlRequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest(url);
var loader:Loader = new Loader();
loader.load(urlRequest);
addChild(loader);
AIR-only 

useCache

property 
useCache:Boolean

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0

Specifies whether the local cache should be consulted before this URLRequest fetches data.

Note:The HTMLLoader.load() method does not support the URLRequest.useCache property.

The default value is true.



Implementation
    public function get useCache():Boolean
    public function set useCache(value:Boolean):void

Throws
SecurityError — The caller is not in the AIR application security sandbox.

See also

AIR-only 

userAgent

property 
userAgent:String

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0, Flash Lite 4

Specifies the user-agent string to be used in the HTTP request.

The default value is the same user agent string that is used by Flash Player, which is different on Mac, Linux, and Windows.

Note: This property does not affect the user agent string when the URLRequest object is used with the load() method of an HTMLLoader object. To set the user agent string for an HTMLLoader object, set the userAgent property of the HTMLLoader object or set the static URLRequestDefaults.userAgent property.



Implementation
    public function get userAgent():String
    public function set userAgent(value:String):void

Throws
SecurityError — The caller is not in the AIR application security sandbox.

See also

Constructor Detail

URLRequest

()Constructor
public function URLRequest(url:String = null)

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Creates a URLRequest object. If System.useCodePage is true, the request is encoded using the system code page, rather than Unicode. If System.useCodePage is false, the request is encoded using Unicode, rather than the system code page.

Parameters
url:String (default = null) — The URL to be requested. You can set the URL later by using the url property.

See also


Example  ( How to use this example )

The following example shows how you can open new browser windows from Flash Player using the navigateToURL() method. Example provided by ActionScriptExamples.com.
// Requires
// - Button symbol on Stage (or a display object, such as a MovieClip) with instance name "buttonSymbol"
//
buttonSymbol.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, buttonSymbol_click);
 
function buttonSymbol_click(evt:MouseEvent):void {
    var req:URLRequest = new URLRequest("http://www.adobe.com/");
    navigateToURL(req, "_blank");
}
URLRequestExample.as

The following example creates a new Loader object and passes it a URLRequest object that contains the path to an XML file. If the loading operation is successful, a complete event is dispatched and the data in the XML file traces to the output. Additional event handlers capture other events, including error events.

To run this example, place a file named XMLFile.xml in the same directory as your SWF file.


package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.events.*;
    import flash.net.*;

    public class URLRequestExample extends Sprite {

        public function URLRequestExample() {
            var loader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
            configureListeners(loader);

            var request:URLRequest = new URLRequest("XMLFile.xml");
            try {
                loader.load(request);
            } catch (error:Error) {
                trace("Unable to load requested document.");
            }
        }

        private function configureListeners(dispatcher:IEventDispatcher):void {
            dispatcher.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, completeHandler);
            dispatcher.addEventListener(Event.OPEN, openHandler);
            dispatcher.addEventListener(ProgressEvent.PROGRESS, progressHandler);
            dispatcher.addEventListener(SecurityErrorEvent.SECURITY_ERROR, securityErrorHandler);
            dispatcher.addEventListener(HTTPStatusEvent.HTTP_STATUS, httpStatusHandler);
            dispatcher.addEventListener(IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, ioErrorHandler);
        }

        private function completeHandler(event:Event):void {
            var loader:URLLoader = URLLoader(event.target);
            trace("completeHandler: " + loader.data);
        }

        private function openHandler(event:Event):void {
            trace("openHandler: " + event);
        }

        private function progressHandler(event:ProgressEvent):void {
            trace("progressHandler loaded:" + event.bytesLoaded + " total: " + event.bytesTotal);
        }

        private function securityErrorHandler(event:SecurityErrorEvent):void {
            trace("securityErrorHandler: " + event);
        }

        private function httpStatusHandler(event:HTTPStatusEvent):void {
            trace("httpStatusHandler: " + event);
        }

        private function ioErrorHandler(event:IOErrorEvent):void {
            trace("ioErrorHandler: " + event);
        }
    }
}