Java and Flex

Mysql-java-flex with a flex server

Youll need a flex server:
Fds-tomcat has been pre-configured to run flex apps.
Regular tomcat can run flex too
JRun can be downloaded preconfigured with LCDS (Flex
life-cycle data services express edition)
Youll also need Hibernate, mysql & java
Hibernate is open source and comes as a jar file that
needs to be in the classpath.
http://blogs.adobe.com/mtg/2006/08/my_first_hibernate_
enabled_fle.html
This tutorial was relatively easy to do using JRun.

Install LDS (adobe livecycle data
services) with integrated JRun4..
This contains the same LCDS as the fds-
tomcat and has a similar bunch of
samples.
JRun comes preconfigured.
This is the version I used although the
next screen shot is of the fancier version
JRun4 the full-blown version shown below
- needs to be configured for LCDS but
allows you to add servers as needed.
This tutorial (approximately the
next 14 slides)
Youll need to comment out the java.home
definition in the jvm.config.xml file or
youll get a version error between your
compiler and the jvm packaged with the
LCDS.
The main.mxml works fine but youll need
to do some work to get the popup window
working.
Create a mysql database and a table in it
named employeeuse this script if you like
CREATE DATABASE SampleDB;

USE SampleDB;
DROP TABLE IF EXISTS `employee`;

CREATE TABLE `employee` (

`employeeid` int(10) unsigned NOT NULL auto_increment,

`firstname` varchar(255) default NULL,

`lastname` varchar(255) default NULL,

PRIMARY KEY (`employeeid`)

) ENGINE=InnoDB DEFAULT CHARSET=utf8;
INSERT INTO `employee` (`employeeid`,`firstname`,`lastname`) VALUES

(1,'Conrad','Simms'),

(2,'Akira','Tanaka'),

(3,'Rye','Woodard');
Create Employee.java

package EmployeeManagement;
public class Employee {
private int id;
private String firstname;
private String lastname;
public void setId(int id) { this.id = id; }
public int getId() { return this.id; }
public void setFirstname(String firstname)
{
this.firstname = firstname;

}
public String getFirstname()

{
return firstname;
}

public void setLastname(String lastname)

{
this.lastname = lastname;
}

public String getLastname()
{
return lastname;

} }
Save Employee.java
Save it in c:\fds\jrun4\servers\default\flex\WEB-
INF\src\EmployeeManagement\Employee.java
Create directories as needed
Compile it and save the .class file in
c:\fds\jrun4\servers\default\flex\WEB-
INF\classes\EmployeeManagement\
Hibernate mapping file
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-mapping PUBLIC
"-//Hibernate/Hibernate Mapping DTD 3.0//EN"
"http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-mapping-
3.0.dtd"> <hibernate-mapping>
<class name="EmployeeManagement.Employee" table="employee">
<id name="id" column="employeeid">
<generator class="native"/>
</id>
<property name="firstname"/>
<property name="lastname"/>
</class>
<!-- This is a named query that we will use later -->
<query name="all.employees">From Employee</query>
</hibernate-mapping>

Save this file as Employee.hbm.xml in the same folder where we just
placed our persistent (java) class
Creating the Hibernate
configuration file
This file contains the configuration settings that will enable Hibernate to connect to the database that we would
like to access. The following Hibernate configuration contains the minimal settings required for this tutorial to work:
<?xml version='1.0' encoding='utf-8'?>
<!DOCTYPE hibernate-configuration PUBLIC
"-//Hibernate/Hibernate Configuration DTD 3.0//EN"
"http://hibernate.sourceforge.net/hibernate-configuration-3.0.dtd">
<hibernate-configuration>
<session-factory>
<!-- Database connection settings -->
<property name="connection.driver_class">com.mysql.jdbc.Driver</property>
<property name="connection.url">jdbc:mysql://localhost/SampleDB</property>
<property name="connection.username">root</property>
<property name="connection.password"></property>
<!-- JDBC connection pool (use the built-in) -->
<property name="connection.pool_size">1</property>
<!-- SQL dialect -->
<property name="dialect">org.hibernate.dialect.MySQLDialect</property>
<!-- Enable Hibernate's automatic session context management -->
<property name="current_session_context_class">thread</property>
<!-- Disable the second-level cache -->
<property name="cache.provider_class">org.hibernate.cache.NoCacheProvider</property> <!--
Echo all executed SQL to stdout -->
<property name="show_sql">true</property>
<!-- Load the database table mapping file -->
<mapping resource="EmployeeManagement/Employee.hbm.xml"/>
</session-factory>
</hibernate-configuration>
This file must be named hibernate.cfg.xml and must be in the application's classpath. Therefore, we will save this
file in the following location: C:\fds2\jrun4\servers\default\flex\WEB-INF\classes
edit the data-management-config.xml file located in
C:\fds\jrun4\servers\default\flex\WEB-INF\flex
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<service id="data-service"
class="flex.data.DataService"
messageTypes="flex.data.messages.DataMessage"> <adapters>
<adapter-definition id="actionscript" class="flex.data.adapters.ASObjectAdapter" default="true"/>
<adapter-definition id="java-dao" class="flex.data.adapters.JavaAdapter"/>
</adapters>
<default-channels>
<channel ref="my-rtmp"/>
</default-channels>
<destination id="employee.hibernate">
<adapter ref="java-dao" />
<properties>
<use-transactions>true</use-transactions>
<source>flex.data.assemblers.HibernateAssembler</source>
<scope>application</scope>
<metadata>
<!--This is the unique identifier from the hibernate-entity bean -->
<identity property="id"/>
</metadata>
<network>
<session-timeout>20</session-timeout>
<paging enabled="false" pageSize="10" />
<throttle-inbound policy="ERROR" max-frequency="500"/>
<throttle-outbound policy="REPLACE" max-frequency="500"/>
</network>
<server>
<hibernate-entity>EmployeeManagement.Employee</hibernate-entity>
<fill-method>
<name>fill</name>
<params>java.util.List</params>
</fill-method>
<fill-configuration>
<use-query-cache>false</use-query-cache>
<allow-hql-queries>true</allow-hql-queries>
</fill-configuration>
</server>
</properties>
</destination>
</service>
Adding dependent jars
copy the mysql-connector-java-3.0.15-ga-
bin.jar to
C:\fds\jrun4\servers\default\flex\WEB-INF\lib
From the Flex Data Services, navigate to
the resources/hibernate folder, copy all of
the jars from that folder to the same
location as the MySQL driver you just
copied.
Employee.as: an actionscript file
package EmployeeManagement
{
[Managed]
[RemoteClass(alias="EmployeeManagement.Employee")]
public class Employee
{
public function Employee() {}

public var id:int;
public var firstname:String="";
public var lastname:String="";
}
}

Save this file as Employee.as in :
C:\fds2\jrun4\servers\default\flex\EmployeeManager\EmployeeManagement
The flex application
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" layout="absolute" creationComplete="getEmployees()"> <mx:Script>
<![CDATA[
import mx.controls.Alert;
import mx.rpc.events.FaultEvent;
import mx.collections.ArrayCollection;
import flash.events.MouseEvent;
import mx.rpc.AsyncToken;
import mx.data.*;
import EmployeeManagement.*;

[Bindable]
private var employee:Employee;

private function getEmployees():void {
currentState='';
hibernate.fill(myArray,"all.employees",[]); }

private function handleFault(event:FaultEvent):void {
mx.controls.Alert.show(event.message.toString());

}
]]>
</mx:Script> <mx:DataService id="hibernate" destination="employee.hibernate" fault="handleFault(event)" autoCommit="true" />
<mx:ArrayCollection id="myArray" />
<mx:VBox width="783" height="562" y="10" x="10">
<mx:ApplicationControlBar width="782" borderColor="#408080" fillColors="[#408080, #408080]" fillAlphas="[0.53, 0.53]"
autoLayout="true">
<mx:Text text="Employee Management Console" fontSize="26" fontWeight="bold" fontStyle="italic" themeColor="#ff8000" alpha="0.52"/>
</mx:ApplicationControlBar>
<mx:HBox x="10" y="10" width="783" height="455" id="hbox1">
<mx:Panel id="listEmployeePanel" width="783" height="455" layout="absolute" title="Employee List" cornerRadius="8"
borderColor="#408080" fontSize="13">
<mx:DataGrid id="dgrid" dataProvider="{myArray}" editable="false" width="763" height="411" bottom="0" right="0">
<mx:columns>
<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="Employee ID" dataField="id"/>
<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="First Name" dataField="firstname"/>
<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="Last Name" dataField="lastname"/>
</mx:columns>
</mx:DataGrid>
</mx:Panel>
</mx:HBox>
</mx:VBox>
</mx:Application>
Pop up window
In my flex.ppt (and on the adobe help
page) you can find information on setting
up a pop up window.
The code for a pop up window for this
application to create a new employee is in
this slides notes and accompanies the
download files.
The application loads hibernate from mysql
and uses a simple java bean and flex here
it is running on JRun4
Pop up window to add new employee
Mysql table shows new employees
added
Multiple web apps
One way to establish multiple web apps
running on the server is to create multiple
directories under
lcds/jrun4/servers/default.
Create a subdirectory employee (or
something) at this level and copy
necessary files over, maintaining the
directory structure.
Note url
About Java DAO and Flex
Coenraets fds-tomcat contains an entire tomcat
distribution configured to run flex.
Download it at: 30 minute test drive
This test drive also contains tutorials and examples
showing flex use with hibernate, spring and java.
His pdf on java dao/flex (Flex Data Management
Services Tutorial link in the index) is a good starting
point tutorial to get your feet wet.
Careful, there may be a typo or two. His blog site has
tips: http://coenraets.org/blog/2007/01/flex-data-
management-services-tutorial/

Coenraets fds tutorial
Hw complete the Coenraets
tutorial
Coenreats uses a hibernate database that
comes with the fds-tomcat. Be careful to make
copies of various xml config files which you
change.
Good idea to save the original zip to restore
settings if things get goofed up.
In particular, we will later use mysql to interface
with flex. This involves changing a properties
file which will break the Coenreats tutorial
webapp.
Other details: classpath
To do your own DAO coding, youll need more jar files in
your class path: spring.jar and flex-messaging.jar
You can set the classpath as you compile or with a
separate instruction:
C:> sdkTool -classpath classpath1;classpath2...
-or-
C:> set CLASSPATH=classpath1;classpath2...
It may be easiest to make a batch file or set the class
path environment variable to include the path settings
go to control panel->system->advanced->environment
variables->edit classpath
You can find more details by searching online.
About Java DAO and Flex
Accessing Spring beans from flex (FDS)

Lin lin has a pretty good tutorial also for building
the entire DAO layer by hand and provides a flex
client interface also.
Tutorial URL at
http://weblogs.macromedia.com/lin/archives/fdsl
cds/index.html
There may be an error in here, too. Certainly, as
with Coenraets, there are a few omissions.
Screenshot: a DAO layer interfacing with
MySQL and displayed in Flex, running in the
fds-tomcat server
Spring Configuration

1). Download spring.jar and flex-spring-factory.jar to your machine, and put them into your flex
apps WEB-INF/lib directory.
2). Add the following into your flex apps WEB-INF/web.xml file, inside <web-app> tag.
<context-param>
<param-name>contextConfigLocation</param-name>
<param-value>/WEB-INF/applicationContext.xml</param-value>
</context-param>
<listener>
<listener-class> org.springframework.web.context.ContextLoaderListener </listener-class>
</listener>
3). Add the following into to WEB-INF\flex\services-config.xml inside <services-config> tag:
<factories>
<factory id="spring" class="flex.samples.factories.SpringFactory"/>
</factories>
4). If you are using JRun as app server, set the following in WEB-INF\jrun-web.xml to avoid parser
conflicting:
<jrun-web-app>
<load-system-classes-first> true</load-system-classes-first>
</jrun-web-app>
Now you are ready to use flex to access Spring beans.

Properties file for mysql connection
In webapps/root/web-inf/src edit the file
flexdemodb.properties. Be sure to save
the old version which shows how to
connect to hibernate!!!
jdbc.driver=com.mysql.jdbc.Driver
jdbc.url=jdbc:mysql:test ///your_db_name
jdbc.user=root
jdbc.password=
Other errata
For some reason, I needed to use MyAssembler
as well as MyAssemblerSpring I couldnt find
where the system was looking for it, but I copied
both identical class files to my java class
directory. Because this file accessed
MyService I wound up sticking both MyService
and MyServiceSpring (identical class files) into
my java classes directory.
Besides the properties file, you need to put
database connection details in
webapps\root\WEB-INF\applicationContext.xml
see next slide
A piece of Webapps\root\Web-
inf\applicationContext.xml
<bean id="dataSource"
class="org.springframework.jdbc.datasource.DriverManagerDataSo
urce">
<property name="driverClassName"
value="org.gjt.mm.mysql.Driver"/>
<property name="url" value="http://localhost:3306/test"/>
<property name="username" value="root"/>
<property name="password" value=""/>
</bean>

Hw: complete lin lin tutorial
Complete tutorial.
Then add reasonable CRUD functionality
to your web app.
Automatically generate flex and
java code
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/
daoflex_print.html
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flex/articles/
daoflex_03.html

A flex-jrun app example
http://coenraets.org/blog/2006/10/building-
collaborative-applications-with-flex-data-
services-and-flash-media-server/
http://www.ecosvirtuales.com/tutoriales/fle
x2_gettingstarted.pdf (a large pdf on
installing and using Flex Builder)