Fileupload using AMFPHP, RemoteObject and Flash 10

File upload with Adobe Flex is a common asked feature for lots of applications. There are several posts on the internet to be found which explain, in detail, how to do this.

Most of these examples however uses the http protocol to transport the binary data. With the arrival of the Adobe Flash 10 player and the new FileReference features that comes with it, it is now also possible to upload a file via a RemoteObject service call.

For the coming example it is assumed that amfphp 1.9 and Flash player 10 (Flex 3.2 SDK) is installed and running. Furthermore i am using a setup as described in one of my earlier posts about RemoteObject and AMFPHP. Download PHPUpload.zip for full example code.

Copy the services contents found in the zip to your amfphp services location (and check the amfphp/globals.php if your “vo” location is configurated to “services/vo/”).

Within your services directory a RemoteFile.php can be found with a public function upload, which require a parameter of type FileVO:


require_once ('./vo/FileVO.php');
class RemoteFile {
/**
* Upload files!
*
* @param FileVO $file
* @return string
**/
public function upload(FileVO $file) {
$data = $file->filedata->data;
file_put_contents( 'uploads/' . $file->filename, $data);
return 'File: ' . $file->filename .' Uploaded ';
}
}


The FileVO php class has a Flex counterpart also called FileVO which is used as a so called RemoteClass. This RemoteClass has an attribute for the filename and filedata (ByteArray).

No we are ready to create the service class for the upload example, this class will be named RemoteFileService and extends the RemoteService super class.public class RemoteFileService extends RemoteService {
private static var phpServiceClass:String = "RemoteFile";
//constructor
public function RemoteFileService(amfChannelId:String, amfChannelEndpoint:String) {
super("remotefileService","amfphp", amfChannelId, amfChannelEndpoint);
}
// Upload function
public function upload(file:FileVO):void {
remoteObject.source = phpServiceClass;
remoteObject.upload.addEventListener(
ResultEvent.RESULT,handleRemoteMethod);
remoteObject.upload(file);
}
// Remote result handler
protected function handleRemoteMethod(event:ResultEvent):void {
var uploadStatus:String;
uploadStatus = event.result.toString();
Application.application.dispatchEvent(
new RemoteResultEvent(RemoteResultEvent.UPLOAD_STATUS, uploadStatus));
}
}

The Flex application file contains a text component (which will be filled with the selected filename), a button for selecting a file and a button to start the upload. Download PHPUpload.zip for full example code.

After a succesfull upload the selected file will be placed in the amfphp/services/uploads directory (needs write privileges!) and an Alert shows a message from the server.