Wade Arnold
Wade.arnold@t8design.com
Leveraging the
Zend Framework for
your next Flex RIA

What is Zend Amf?
Zend Amf is an open source
implementation of Adobe’s AMF (Action
Messaging Format) which is the binary
protocol that the Flash Player uses to store
objects.
Zend Amf is an alternative to
Adobe’s LiveCycle Data Services ES with
PHP as the endpoint rather than Java.
Zend Amf allows a seamless connection
between the Flash Player and PHP
classes.

By leveraging the AMF protocol there is no
additional client side work in order to
encode and decode data objects that are
sent to and from the server.
Zend Amf acts as a gateway to PHP and
through serialization transforms the data
types between ActionScript into PHP.

What is AMF?
Action Message Format(AMF) is a binary
file format representing a serialized
ActionScript object. The AMF file type is
used throughout the Flash Player for data
storage and data exchange. For example
in the Flash Player AMF is used in
SharedObjects, RemoteObjects,
LocalConnection, ByteArray, RTMP, and
all RPC operations. You can serialize any
object in Flash Player with the only
exception being a displayObject.
File Size – AMF objects are very small and
are compressed using zlib.

What is AMF?
Fast Serialization/ Deserialization – AMF is
transformed using native C code in the
Flash Player making it very fast. The AMF
format was designed to serialize and
deserialize quickly under low memory and
slower CPU conditions making it perfect for
the web.
AMF data is parsed directly into objects,
meaning there is no lag for interpretation or
parsing of AMF making the creation of
objects complete in a single pass.

Why use Zend Amf?
It handles the conversion of data types
between ActionScript and PHP.
It can convert complex objects and
supports class mapping.
It allows you to make direct calls to server
side methods, which eliminates time spent
developing parsers in Flash and PHP.
AMF serialization is part of the Flash
Player, which decreases the code footprint
and optimizes server communication.

Why use Zend Amf?
It is simple to start using on any web server
that runs PHP 5.2.3 or above.
Services are “non-specific” PHP classes
that are portable without any code change.
Easily separate the workload of
ActionScript programmers from PHP
programmers and let each use best of
bread tools for development.

Service Census
http://www.jamesward.com/census/

Your first Service (demo)
Look at PHP HelloWorld
Connect with Flash CS3
Connect with Flex 3

Class Mapping
$Object->getClassName
//”com.MyFlashClass”
@ClassMap com.MyFlashClass
$object = new
Zend_Amf_Value_TypedObject(‘com.MyFlashClas
s',$data);
Zend_Amf_ClassMap::registerClass(“com.MyFlas
hClass”, “MyPhpClass”);

Why Zend Amf
PHP runs the internet for a reason
Flash/Flex enable a greater level of
expression
Tested*
Backed by Adobe & Zend

Questions?