Flash

This tutorial will guide you through the steps of sending information into a Microsoft Access Database using a Flash form and ASP as a server side script. You will also learn some basic and very useful ASP syntax. The example I will be using was created in Flash MX 2004. This will also work for Flash MX, and Flash 5.

Steps:
1. Create the database
2. Create the Flash form and send our variables to our ASP page
3. Retreive variables form flash and insert the information into our database

Creating the Database
I'm not going to go into great detail about creating a database in Microsoft Access, but I will walk you through it.

1. Create a new database by going to File > New and save it in your _root directory for now. We will later move the database outside your _root folder for security purposes.
    
2. Create a table in design view and save it with the name contacts:

3. You will then need to create the field names and datatypes. Yours should match mine below:

4.  Ok, your done creating your database, save your file and let's open up flash.

Creating the Flash Form

1. As I mentioned before this will work using Flash 5 - Flash MX 2004, so take your pick and open a new document.
    
2. Create four input textfields with either the text tool or ActionScript, and a submit button. Make sure all textfields are set to input in your properties panel.

3. Make sure to give your input textfields variable names. I used:

fname
lname
email
message
 

You should now have a form similar to mine:

For now what we are going to do is use the getURL() syntax so we can test our ASP page. Later on when we know everything is working we will then change the getURL() sytnax to loadVariablesNum(). You may be very surprised to see that we will only be using 1 line of actionscript to send our data to the ASP page.

on(press){ getURL("http://yourSite.com/processForm.asp",0,"post"); }
 

Remember you can simply use the loadVariablesNum() syntax, so if your bold go ahead, but you won't be able to really test your asp page until your done.

on(press){ loadVariablesNum("http://yourSite.com/processForm.asp",0,"post"); }
 

Creating the ASP Page
If your familiar with PHP you will quickly notice that the process to enter information into a database is the same. The steps we will need to take are as follows:

1. Retreive the data from Flash
2. Connect to our database
3. Create a SQL query to insert the data we previously obtained
4. Execute the SQL query.
    

Receive the Data from Flash

1. Open notepad or a similar editing program.
    
2. Lets start with the basics of ASP. first save your document as processForm.asp
    
3. Let's first define what scripting we are using. ASP scripts are surrounded by the delimiters <%...%>. Here is the syntax:

<%@language = "VBScript" %>

4. Now lets capture the the variables form our Flash form we created and give them. Your code show read as follows:

<%@language = "VBScript" %>
<%

strFirst = Request.Form("fname")
strLast = Request.Form("lname")
strEmail = Request.Form("email")
strMessage = Request.Form("message")

%>

All we are doing here is setting up variable names and giving them the values we retrieved from Flash. So when we want to refer to those values we will be using the new names we just gave them.

{Note this will also work with a HTML form.}

It's always a good idea to trouble shoot as you go. So let's make sure were actually receiving the information before we go ahead and try to do anything with it. So let's print our variables to the browser. Add this code to your ASP file.

Response.Write(strFirst) & "<br>"
Response.Write(strLast) & "<br>"
Response.Write(strEmail) & "<br>"
Response.Write(strMessage)

So now when we test our file the page should display the information you typed into the Flash form. So far this is what your code should look like.

<%@language = "VBScript" %>
<%

strFirst = Request.Form("fname")
strLast = Request.Form("lname")
strEmail = Request.Form("email")
strMessage = Request.Form("message")

Response.Write(strFirst) & "<br>"
Response.Write(strLast) & "<br>"
Response.Write(strEmail) & "<br>"
Response.Write(strMessage)

%>

Connecting to our Database
Great now that we have our data captured let's go ahead and connect to the database. Here is the syntax that allows us to connect to the database we created:

MyPath=Server.MapPath("example.mdb")
Set conn = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection") '
conn.Open "Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};" & _
"DBQ=" & MyPath

Let's test our page and make sure we don't get any errors. Your final code should look like this:

<%@language = "VBScript" %>
<%

strFirst = Request.Form("fname")
strLast = Request.Form("lname")
strEmail = Request.Form("email")
strMessage = Request.Form("message")

Response.Write(strFirst) & "<br>"
Response.Write(strLast) & "<br>"
Response.Write(strEmail) & "<br>"
Response.Write(strMessage)

MyPath=Server.MapPath("example.mdb")
Set conn = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
conn.Open "Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};" & _
"DBQ=" & MyPath

%>

Creating the SQL Query
If your not familiar with SQL the syntax for INSERTING is:

INSERT INTO table_name
VALUES (value1, value2,....)

Our full SQL query will read as follows:

SQL = "INSERT INTO contacts(FirstName, LastName, Email, Message) VALUES ('"&strFirst&"','"&strLast&"','"&strEmail&"','"&strMessage&"')"

Again let's avoid future troubleshooting and print our SQL statement your code should read as follows:

<%@language = "VBScript" %>
<%

strFirst = Request.Form("fname")
strLast = Request.Form("lname")
strEmail = Request.Form("email")
strMessage = Request.Form("message")

Response.Write(strFirst) & "<br>"
Response.Write(strLast) & "<br>"
Response.Write(strEmail) & "<br>"
Response.Write(strMessage)

MyPath=Server.MapPath("example.mdb")
Set conn = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
conn.Open "Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};" & _
"DBQ=" & MyPath

SQL = "INSERT INTO contacts (FirstName, LastName, Email, Message) VALUES ('"&strFirst&"','"&strLast&"','"&strEmail&"','"&strMessage&"')"

Response.Write(SQL)
%>

Executing the SQL Query
Now that everything is working let's go ahead and execute our SQL query. The syntax is as follows:

conn.Execute(SQL)

At this point we really don't need our asp page to print out our variables and SQL statement. So let's clean up our ASP unless you don't want to or just comment out the Response.Write lines. (the ' character is used to comment in ASP)

Final Code:

<%@language = "VBScript" %>
<%

strFirst = Request.Form("fname")
strLast = Request.Form("lname")
strEmail = Request.Form("email")
strMessage = Request.Form("message")

MyPath=Server.MapPath("example.mdb")
Set conn = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
conn.Open "Driver={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};" & _
"DBQ=" & MyPath

SQL = "INSERT INTO contacts (FirstName, LastName, Email, Message) VALUES ('"&strFirst&"','"&strLast&"','"&strEmail&"','"&strMessage&"')"
conn.Execute(SQL)
%>

Ok that's it. If you've gotten this far you've done a nice job. I tried to keep the ASP as simple as possible. None of the code is written in stone, it's just the way I like to do things. If your getting error's or if your information isn't getting stored in the database retrace your steps, and remember to always print before you execute. One final thought is about security. If you keep your database inside the _root folder of your site, your database can now be accessed by anyone. You should always keep your databases outside the _root of your web folder. The only thing you will need to change is the path to the database in your ASP script.

Change:

MyPath=Server.MapPath("example.mdb")

To something like:

MyPath=Server.MapPath("../database/example.mdb")

download source files see working example

If you  have any questions, feel free to post on the forums by clicking here.
 

Digitalosophy