Writing to an XML file

[alex0816]

Hello, does anyone know of any links to a sample FLA that WRITES XML information to a file?

[jamesbooth97]

Doesn't appear anyone is going to comment on this so i will take a shot. I just figured out one way to do it. I use flash and send the data to ASP to build the xml file, as well as add nodes. The way i figured out how to do it was searching for "asp xml". I found a few examples - then just edited the examples to work with flash: request.form("email") to request("email") for example. This worked very good. If you are using php I can't help you.. But i suspect you could use the same concept.

[TRJNET]

basically theres 2 answers to your question:

1stly, Im sure you could make a xml parser using actionscript to make it store data to a xml file, or inside a xml object, problem is, that's usually too hard for the average designer to do.

2ndly, remember that XML is a independant cross-platform data language, before you get involved with XML, you have to take into consideration that a lot of people know about XML and how it works, so of coarse there will be security issues for XML, as devs will know that XML apps read or send data to xml trees. Aswell, was made strictly for sending data, Im not sure whether they figured to make it a securable web data language. But hey, maybe there is a way to make xml files protected, if there is, I would love to know how-to ;p

[jamesbooth97]

Thanks TRJNET for your response.. i assume you were answering my question in another post about how to secure xml. After reading your answer I am thinking that my question was not worded correctly.

I was thinking about using xml to store student data, like test scores from a flash application. My thoughts were that, unlike html, most people wouldn't be unable to see my links to the xml file on the server, so they would not know the URL to the xml file, thus would be unable to simply type it in their browser and view other students scores. But since the quiz is not testing hackers, figured it would be secure enough!

However, since spiders crawl the web, my fear was that (because I do not know if spiders look for xml) the crawler might find the xml and it could turn up on a search.

So, i guess i should have asked, is it easy for someone to find the xml on a server - thus allowing them to pull up the entire xml file in their browser?

[TRJNET]

whoops, posted the answer in the wrong thread window lol, o welll, and yes you've bought up a great point & questions, with regards to that:

1stly, Good question, whether google web spiders would catch a xml file address, like how google can find results for html pages, jpegs, and forum threads (i wouldnt be surprised if it did catch xml files). But i personally have never seen a search result in google for a xml file ever. Im not sure on this one, i think I'll have to email them that question, just for web security sake, for possbile future flash/xml clients, I should give notice of that if theres a security issue.

2ndly, And yes you brought up a similiar point that I said in my answer, I guess with regards to your students, it would only matter if you have web designers/developers in the class you teach ;p

It would even matter more if they are good at getting into web servers, or know how-to trace ip's or web addresses and find web directories easily. Because I'm currently 20 years old, and I learnt how-to use ftp apps, html and all of that like 4-5 years ago when the internet came out. But hey ! Times change, and people can easily learn how-to use a new web technology to cheat ! Take for example, the old university/college problem of essays & google.ca ;D Same situation.

[jamesbooth97]

So, with all this said, why do i see examples of xml being used for passwords and usernames? seems odd to me...

Jim

[TRJNET]

yeah Ive seen those too, Im guessing the devs that created those examples, figured that it would be too complicated for most-people to figure out (novice/beginner internet users)

Either that, or they put some sort of xml db secuirty in place.