Noob Flash

Archive for February, 2009

I have had several people ask me how to get URL QueryString values in JavaScript, so I created a function that will take a string, find the matching QueryString key, and return the value associated with that key. Enjoy!

NOTE: You may have to remove and re-type the “s from the code below if you copy it from this page. Some of them don’t come through correctly when you paste into your dev application.

<script type="text/javascript"> function queryStringValue(findName){ var name = new String(); var value = new String(); var querystring = document.location.href; if(querystring.indexOf("?")==-1){ return "null"; } querystring = querystring.split("?"); querystring = querystring[1].split("&"); for(q=0;q<querystring.length;q++){ var pair = querystring[q].split("="); name = pair[0].toLowerCase(); value = pair[1].toLowerCase(); if(findName.toLowerCase() == name){ return value; } } } document.write(queryStringValue("noob")); </script>

Let's pretend the URL of this page is http://www.noobflash.com/foo/index.html?noob=someValue. The code above will find the first QueryString instance of "noob" in the URL and return the "someValue" portion to be used in your code. You would simply type queryStringValue("stringToFind") whenever you would like to get new QueryString data.

A request has been made for me to cover how to create a SQL If / Else statement. In this example, I am declaring a variable (@myVar), and using a select statement to set it equal to the value of table.columnName. Once you have a value, you can use that value in your If / Else statement. This example is checking to see if @myVar is greater than 10. If so, then the first SQL select statement is executed. If @myVar is not greater than 10, then the second SQL statement is executed.

DECLARE @myVar AS INTEGER

SELECT
@myVar = table.columnName
FROM table
WHERE columnName2 = condition

IF ( @myVar > 10 )
BEGIN
   SELECT *
   FROM table
   WHERE columnName = @myVar
END
ELSE
BEGIN
   SELECT *
   FROM table
   WHERE columnName < @myVar
END

XML is the most popular data delivery methods for Flash and Flex. It’s fairly simple to load and consume XML, but it’s a little intimidating if you’re a ActionScript noob. Use the following code to pull in xml data and display it via a Flash trace.

var loader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, getXML);
// Request XML File from URL
loader.load(new URLRequest("http://www.noobflash.com/feed/"));

function getXML(event:Event):void {
	var xmlData:XML = new XML(event.target.data);
	trace(xmlData);
}

Once you have the XML loaded, you will need to parse the XML using E4X. (Read: Parse XML Data in ActionScript 3 Using E4X)

Changing the style of an object is as simple as finding the object on the page, then setting the new style value. Use the code below as an example.

//Find the div you want to update
var divArray = document.getElementById('myDiv');
//Set the width style
divArray.style.width = '300px';

CSS attribute names are slightly different when used in JavaScript, so you will need to reference the list below before you get frustrated and pull your hair out.

Occasionally I run across the need to get the number of characters in a string. You can use the code below to determine the character length of a string.

var myString = 'This is a String';
alert(myString.length);