Reading .sol (SharedObjects) created by Browser Flex App in a new AIR Application - Seamless integration? Web & Desktop?

    One of the requirements was to provide seamless integration between the browser flex application serving the client needs when the network is on vs an AIR Application as an offline system when the network turns off. But the requirement isnt straight as you think. What it says is, When network is connected the end user will be using flex browser application by navigating to the URL which downloads a lot of data on to the client machine from the server which periodically gets updated based on the data-change on the server. This is stored as client side SharedObjects through the browser ran flex app. Now when the network turns off, the end user would launch the offline system that should read through earlier created sharedobjects while network was on and work through it. AIR App should also be able to write a shared object containing data required to be parsed through the browser flex app when launched (when network is back)...

    This kind of sounds so wierd to me. After hearing the requirement, i was like WHAT?? But then i started to see through different ways of achieving it. With Browser Sandbox Security, browser flex app always can get hold of SO (Shared objects) created through SharedObject.getLocal(). Even if we were to understand and agree to one common location that AIR Could understandably read, keeping the location parameter excluded for a whole lot of argument... The Important thing is to consider serialize and de-serialize a FileStream read ByteArray into AS Objects that can be natively used in the code. Well, more to that is the SharedObjects written through the browser flex app could also carry complex data structures which could carry more information rather than a simple data->name/value

   While doing the research, i went through a lot of google search - .minerva was exactly doing what i was looking for but its not open to go through the bits of it and tweak to get it working !!

• Link to AMF 3 Specification document
• Format of a Shared Object
• Open Source Flash
• Storing Custom AMF Objects for AIR App Storage

• Reading ByteArrays either from Web or AIR app (I couldnt connect through it well)

• Reading and Writing a ByteArray - Flex Docs (on zip file formats) & also here
• AIR App Named .minerva (this is exactly what i was intending to do, but after installing .minerva i didnt open up some of my other .sol files even though they were good)
• Link to AMF-PHP Open Source porting link

• Persistence Storage with .SOL (shared objects), a just like that content.

• SharedObject API doc
• AMF Serializer/deserializer for java/flex - Google Code
• Granite DS (what they claim is alternative to LCDS)

Here is a sample code demoing the problem:

 

Browser Flex App creates a shared object (typed ClazzTest.as containing two public variables value1 and value2 of type string)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute"> <mx:Script> <![CDATA[ import com.arun.ClazzTest; import flash.net.registerClassAlias; private function generateWebFlexSharedObjects():void { var clazzTest:ClazzTest = new ClazzTest(); clazzTest.value1 = 'Value1'; clazzTest.value2 = 'Value2'; registerClassAlias('com.arun.ClazzTest',ClazzTest); var so:SharedObject = SharedObject.getLocal("cachename"); var b:ByteArray = new ByteArray(); b.objectEncoding = ObjectEncoding.AMF3; b.writeObject(clazzTest); so.data.clazzTest = clazzTest; so.flush(); } ]]> </mx:Script> <mx:Button label="Generate SO" click="generateWebFlexSharedObjects()"/> </mx:Application>

AIR App code that tries to read the shared object created by the browser flex app above.. (for now assume that the object location is hardcoded)

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <mx:WindowedApplication xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute" width="500" height="422"> <mx:Script> <![CDATA[ import flash.utils.getQualifiedClassName; import flash.utils.describeType; import mx.controls.Alert; import mx.utils.ObjectUtil; private function readBrowserFlexCache():void { var path:String = "C:\\Documents and Settings\\amadas\\Application Data\\Macromedia\\Flash Player\\#SharedObjects\\5RP3MMUQ\\#localhost\\BrowserFlexSharedObjects\\bin-debug\\BrowserFlexSharedObjects.swf\\cachename.sol"; var solFile:File = new File(path); txtOutput.htmlText = 'File Exists ? ' + solFile.exists + '\n'; var fileStream:FileStream = new FileStream(); fileStream.openAsync(solFile, FileMode.READ); txtOutput.htmlText += 'File Bytes Available : ' + fileStream.bytesAvailable + '\n'; var bytes:ByteArray = new ByteArray(); fileStream.readBytes(bytes, 0, fileStream.bytesAvailable); txtOutput.htmlText += 'Bytes Read = ' + bytes.bytesAvailable; bytes.objectEncoding = ObjectEncoding.AMF3; //trace(describeType(bytes.readObject()).toXMLString()); //var objInfo:Object = ObjectUtil.getClassInfo(bytes); var obj:Object = bytes.readObject(); //trace(getQualifiedClassName(obj)); if(obj != null) { Alert.show('Object retrieved !! '); } fileStream.close(); } ]]> </mx:Script> <mx:Button label="Read SO" click="readBrowserFlexCache()" x="23" y="30" width="146"/> <mx:TextArea x="23" y="80" width="452" height="259" id="txtOutput"/> </mx:WindowedApplication>

The above AIR App code doesnt work. Its just the way i wish it would. But i believe we need to go through the entire signature of SharedObject and read the bytestream in the way SharedObject is defined as an entirety like header, body etc. I just looked at the Serializer and Deserializer in AMF-PHP and that just gives me some idea. Trying to do this entirely might take a long time than to get it just working quickly... I am still on a hunt !! ------------------------------------------ If someone is looking out for a quick solution where in you wont have enough time to write an AMF object parser, you can follow my quick solution. We lowered the IE settings to allow scripting, there by i invoke a javascript function which writes the data to the flat xml file in the client machine from the flex application through ActiveXObject(), and these flat .xml files are read by the AIR app later on. Atleast this seems to work fine for me until i converge on a right solution !!