ActionScript® 3.0 Reference for the Adobe® Flash® Platform
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flash.media 

AVURLLoader  - AS3

Packageflash.media
Classpublic class AVURLLoader
InheritanceAVURLLoader Inheritance URLLoader Inheritance EventDispatcher Inheritance Object

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0, Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

The URLLoader class downloads data from a URL as text, binary data, or URL-encoded variables. It is useful for downloading text files, XML, or other information to be used in a dynamic, data-driven application.

A URLLoader object downloads all of the data from a URL before making it available to code in the applications. It sends out notifications about the progress of the download, which you can monitor through the bytesLoaded and bytesTotal properties, as well as through dispatched events.

When loading very large video files, such as FLV's, out-of-memory errors may occur.

When you use this class in Flash Player and in AIR application content in security sandboxes other than then application security sandbox, consider the following security model:

  • A SWF file in the local-with-filesystem sandbox may not load data from, or provide data to, a resource that is in the network sandbox.
  • By default, the calling SWF file and the URL you load must be in exactly the same domain. For example, a SWF file at www.adobe.com can load data only from sources that are also at www.adobe.com. To load data from a different domain, place a URL policy file on the server hosting the data.

For more information related to security, see the Flash Player Developer Center Topic: Security.

Related API Elements

URLRequest
URLVariables
AVURLStream


Public Properties
 PropertyDefined By
 InheritedbytesLoaded : uint = 0
Indicates the number of bytes that have been loaded thus far during the load operation.
URLLoader
 InheritedbytesTotal : uint = 0
Indicates the total number of bytes in the downloaded data.
URLLoader
 Inheritedconstructor : Object
A reference to the class object or constructor function for a given object instance.
Object
  cookieHeader : String
[write-only]
AVURLLoader
 Inheriteddata : *
The data received from the load operation.
URLLoader
 InheriteddataFormat : String = "text"
Controls whether the downloaded data is received as text (URLLoaderDataFormat.TEXT), raw binary data (URLLoaderDataFormat.BINARY), or URL-encoded variables (URLLoaderDataFormat.VARIABLES).
URLLoader
Public Methods
 MethodDefined By
  
AVURLLoader(request:URLRequest = null)
Creates a URLLoader object.
AVURLLoader
  
addEventListener(type:String, listener:Function, useCapture:Boolean = false, priority:int = 0, useWeakReference:Boolean = false):void
[override]
AVURLLoader
  
[override] Closes the load operation in progress.
AVURLLoader
 Inherited
Dispatches an event into the event flow.
EventDispatcher
 Inherited
Checks whether the EventDispatcher object has any listeners registered for a specific type of event.
EventDispatcher
 Inherited
Indicates whether an object has a specified property defined.
Object
 Inherited
Indicates whether an instance of the Object class is in the prototype chain of the object specified as the parameter.
Object
  
[override] Sends and loads data from the specified URL.
AVURLLoader
 Inherited
Indicates whether the specified property exists and is enumerable.
Object
 Inherited
removeEventListener(type:String, listener:Function, useCapture:Boolean = false):void
Removes a listener from the EventDispatcher object.
EventDispatcher
 Inherited
Sets the availability of a dynamic property for loop operations.
Object
 Inherited
Returns the string representation of this object, formatted according to locale-specific conventions.
Object
 Inherited
Returns the string representation of the specified object.
Object
 Inherited
Returns the primitive value of the specified object.
Object
 Inherited
Checks whether an event listener is registered with this EventDispatcher object or any of its ancestors for the specified event type.
EventDispatcher
Events
 Event Summary Defined By
 Inherited[broadcast event] Dispatched when the Flash Player or AIR application gains operating system focus and becomes active.EventDispatcher
  Dispatched after all the received data is decoded and placed in the data property of the URLLoader object.AVURLLoader
 Inherited[broadcast event] Dispatched when the Flash Player or AIR application operating loses system focus and is becoming inactive.EventDispatcher
  Dispatched if a call to the load() method attempts to access data over HTTP, and Adobe AIR is able to detect and return the status code for the request.AVURLLoader
  Dispatched if a call to URLLoader.load() attempts to access data over HTTP.AVURLLoader
  Dispatched if a call to URLLoader.load() results in a fatal error that terminates the download.AVURLLoader
  Dispatched when the download operation commences following a call to the URLLoader.load() method.AVURLLoader
  Dispatched when data is received as the download operation progresses.AVURLLoader
  Dispatched if a call to URLLoader.load() attempts to load data from a server outside the security sandbox.AVURLLoader
Property Detail

cookieHeader

property
cookieHeader:String  [write-only]



Implementation
    public function set cookieHeader(value:String):void
Constructor Detail

AVURLLoader

()Constructor
public function AVURLLoader(request:URLRequest = null)

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0, Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Creates a URLLoader object.

Parameters
request:URLRequest (default = null) — A URLRequest object specifying the URL to download. If this parameter is omitted, no load operation begins. If specified, the load operation begins immediately (see the load entry for more information).

Related API Elements

URLLoader.load()
Method Detail

addEventListener

()method
override public function addEventListener(type:String, listener:Function, useCapture:Boolean = false, priority:int = 0, useWeakReference:Boolean = false):void

Parameters

type:String
 
listener:Function
 
useCapture:Boolean (default = false)
 
priority:int (default = 0)
 
useWeakReference:Boolean (default = false)

close

()method 
override public function close():void

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0, Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Closes the load operation in progress. Any load operation in progress is immediately terminated. If no URL is currently being streamed, an invalid stream error is thrown.

load

()method 
override public function load(request:URLRequest):void

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0, Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Sends and loads data from the specified URL. The data can be received as text, raw binary data, or URL-encoded variables, depending on the value you set for the dataFormat property. Note that the default value of the dataFormat property is text. If you want to send data to the specified URL, you can set the data property in the URLRequest object.

Note: If a file being loaded contains non-ASCII characters (as found in many non-English languages), it is recommended that you save the file with UTF-8 or UTF-16 encoding as opposed to a non-Unicode format like ASCII.

A SWF file in the local-with-filesystem sandbox may not load data from, or provide data to, a resource that is in the network sandbox.

By default, the calling SWF file and the URL you load must be in exactly the same domain. For example, a SWF file at www.adobe.com can load data only from sources that are also at www.adobe.com. To load data from a different domain, place a URL policy file on the server hosting the data.

You cannot connect to commonly reserved ports. For a complete list of blocked ports, see "Restricting Networking APIs" in the ActionScript 3.0 Developer's Guide.

In Flash Player 10 and later, if you use a multipart Content-Type (for example "multipart/form-data") that contains an upload (indicated by a "filename" parameter in a "content-disposition" header within the POST body), the POST operation is subject to the security rules applied to uploads:

  • The POST operation must be performed in response to a user-initiated action, such as a mouse click or key press.
  • If the POST operation is cross-domain (the POST target is not on the same server as the SWF file that is sending the POST request), the target server must provide a URL policy file that permits cross-domain access.

Also, for any multipart Content-Type, the syntax must be valid (according to the RFC2046 standards). If the syntax appears to be invalid, the POST operation is subject to the security rules applied to uploads.

For more information related to security, see the Flash Player Developer Center Topic: Security.

Parameters

request:URLRequest — A URLRequest object specifying the URL to download.

Events
complete:Event — Dispatched after data has loaded successfully.
 
httpStatus:HTTPStatusEvent — If access is over HTTP, and the current Flash Player environment supports obtaining status codes, you may receive these events in addition to any complete or error event.
 
ioError:IOErrorEvent — The load operation could not be completed.
 
progress:ProgressEvent — Dispatched when data is received as the download operation progresses.
 
securityError:SecurityErrorEvent — A load operation attempted to retrieve data from a server outside the caller's security sandbox. This may be worked around using a policy file on the server.
 
securityError:SecurityErrorEvent — A load operation attempted to load a SWZ file (a Adobe platform component), but the certificate is invalid or the digest does not match the component.
 
open:Event — Dispatched when a load operation commences.
 
httpResponseStatus:HTTPStatusEvent — Dispatched if a call to the load() method attempts to access data over HTTP and Adobe AIR is able to detect and return the status code for the request.

Throws
ArgumentError URLRequest.requestHeader objects may not contain certain prohibited HTTP request headers. For more information, see the URLRequestHeader class description.
 
MemoryError — This error can occur for the following reasons: 1) Flash Player or AIR cannot convert the URLRequest.data parameter from UTF8 to MBCS. This error is applicable if the URLRequest object passed to load() is set to perform a GET operation and if System.useCodePage is set to true. 2) Flash Player or AIR cannot allocate memory for the POST data. This error is applicable if the URLRequest object passed to load is set to perform a POST operation.
 
SecurityError — Local untrusted files may not communicate with the Internet. This may be worked around by reclassifying this file as local-with-networking or trusted.
 
SecurityError — You are trying to connect to a commonly reserved port. For a complete list of blocked ports, see "Restricting Networking APIs" in the ActionScript 3.0 Developer's Guide.
 
TypeError — The value of the request parameter or the URLRequest.url property of the URLRequest object passed are null.

Related API Elements

URLRequestHeader
URLRequest.requestHeaders
URLRequest.data
URLRequest.digest
Event Detail

complete

Event
Event Object Type: flash.events.Event
property Event.type = flash.events.Event.COMPLETE

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0, Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Dispatched after all the received data is decoded and placed in the data property of the URLLoader object. The received data may be accessed once this event has been dispatched.

The Event.COMPLETE constant defines the value of the type property of a complete event object.

This event has the following properties:

PropertyValue
bubblesfalse
cancelablefalse; there is no default behavior to cancel.
currentTargetThe object that is actively processing the Event object with an event listener.
targetThe network object that has completed loading.

Related API Elements

URLLoader.load()

httpResponseStatus

Event  
Event Object Type: flash.events.HTTPStatusEvent
property HTTPStatusEvent.type = flash.events.HTTPStatusEvent.HTTP_RESPONSE_STATUS

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0, AIR 1.0, Flash Lite 4

Dispatched if a call to the load() method attempts to access data over HTTP, and Adobe AIR is able to detect and return the status code for the request.

Unlike the httpStatus event, the httpResponseStatus event is delivered before any response data. Also, the httpResponseStatus event includes values for the responseHeaders and responseURL properties (which are undefined for an httpStatus event. Note that the httpResponseStatus event (if any) will be sent before (and in addition to) any complete or error event.

The HTTPStatusEvent.HTTP_RESPONSE_STATUS constant defines the value of the type property of a httpResponseStatus event object.

This event has the following properties:

PropertyValue
bubblesfalse
cancelablefalse; there is no default behavior to cancel.
currentTargetThe object that is actively processing the Event object with an event listener.
responseURLThe URL from which the response was returned.
responseHeadersThe response headers that the response returned, as an array of URLRequestHeader objects.
statusThe HTTP status code returned by the server.
redirectedWhether the reponse is the result of a redierct.
targetThe network object receiving an HTTP status code.

Related API Elements

httpStatus

Event  
Event Object Type: flash.events.HTTPStatusEvent
property HTTPStatusEvent.type = flash.events.HTTPStatusEvent.HTTP_STATUS

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0, Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Dispatched if a call to URLLoader.load() attempts to access data over HTTP. For content running in Flash Player, this event is only dispatched if the current Flash Player environment is able to detect and return the status code for the request. (Some browser environments may not be able to provide this information.) Note that the httpStatus event (if any) is sent before (and in addition to) any complete or error event.

The HTTPStatusEvent.HTTP_STATUS constant defines the value of the type property of a httpStatus event object.

This event has the following properties:

PropertyValue
bubblesfalse
cancelablefalse; there is no default behavior to cancel.
currentTargetThe object that is actively processing the Event object with an event listener.
statusThe HTTP status code returned by the server.
targetThe network object receiving an HTTP status code.

Related API Elements

URLLoader.load()

ioError

Event  
Event Object Type: flash.events.IOErrorEvent
property IOErrorEvent.type = flash.events.IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0, Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Dispatched if a call to URLLoader.load() results in a fatal error that terminates the download.

Defines the value of the type property of an ioError event object.

This event has the following properties:

PropertyValue
bubblesfalse
cancelablefalse; there is no default behavior to cancel.
currentTargetThe object that is actively processing the Event object with an event listener.
errorIDA reference number associated with the specific error (AIR only).
targetThe network object experiencing the input/output error.
textText to be displayed as an error message.

Related API Elements

URLLoader.load()

open

Event  
Event Object Type: flash.events.Event
property Event.type = flash.events.Event.OPEN

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0, Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Dispatched when the download operation commences following a call to the URLLoader.load() method.

The Event.OPEN constant defines the value of the type property of an open event object.

This event has the following properties:

PropertyValue
bubblesfalse
cancelablefalse; there is no default behavior to cancel.
currentTargetThe object that is actively processing the Event object with an event listener.
targetThe network object that has opened a connection.

Related API Elements

URLLoader.load()

progress

Event  
Event Object Type: flash.events.ProgressEvent
property ProgressEvent.type = flash.events.ProgressEvent.PROGRESS

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0, Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Dispatched when data is received as the download operation progresses.

Note that with a URLLoader object, it is not possible to access the data until it has been received completely. So, the progress event only serves as a notification of how far the download has progressed. To access the data before it's entirely downloaded, use a AVURLStream object.

Defines the value of the type property of a progress event object.

This event has the following properties:

PropertyValue
bubblesfalse
bytesLoadedThe number of items or bytes loaded at the time the listener processes the event.
bytesTotalThe total number of items or bytes that ultimately will be loaded if the loading process succeeds.
cancelablefalse; there is no default behavior to cancel.
currentTargetThe object that is actively processing the Event object with an event listener.
targetThe object reporting progress.

Related API Elements

URLLoader.load()

securityError

Event  
Event Object Type: flash.events.SecurityErrorEvent
property SecurityErrorEvent.type = flash.events.SecurityErrorEvent.SECURITY_ERROR

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0, Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Dispatched if a call to URLLoader.load() attempts to load data from a server outside the security sandbox. Also dispatched if a call to URLLoader.load() attempts to load a SWZ file and the certificate is invalid or the digest string does not match the component.

The SecurityErrorEvent.SECURITY_ERROR constant defines the value of the type property of a securityError event object.

This event has the following properties:

PropertyValue
bubblesfalse
cancelablefalse; there is no default behavior to cancel.
currentTargetThe object that is actively processing the Event object with an event listener.
targetThe network object reporting the security error.
textText to be displayed as an error message.

Related API Elements

URLLoader.load()