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flash.net 
Socket 
Packageflash.net
Classpublic class Socket
InheritanceSocket Inheritance EventDispatcher Inheritance Object
Implements IDataInput, IDataOutput

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

The Socket class enables code to make socket connections and to read and write raw binary data. It is similar to XMLSocket but does not dictate the format of the received or transmitted data.

The Socket class is useful for working with servers that use binary protocols.

To use the methods of the Socket class, first use the constructor, new Socket, to create a Socket object.

SWF files in the local-with-filesystem sandbox may not use sockets.

Socket policy files on the target host specify the hosts from which SWF files can make socket connections, and the ports to which those connections can be made. The security requirements with regard to socket policy files have become more stringent in the last several releases of Flash Player. In all versions of Flash Player, Adobe recommends the use of a socket policy file; in some circumstances, a socket policy file is required. Therefore, if you are using XMLSocket objects, make sure that the target host provides a socket policy file if necessary.

The following list summarizes the requirements for socket policy files in different versions of Flash Player:

  • In Flash Player 9.0.124.0 and later, a socket policy file is required for any Socket connection. That is, a socket policy file on the target host is required no matter what port you are connecting to, and is required even if you are connecting to a port on the same host that is serving the SWF file.
  • In Flash Player versions 9.0.115.0 and earlier, if you want to connect to a port number below 1024, or if you want to connect to a host other than the one serving the SWF file, a socket policy file on the target host is required.
  • In Flash Player 9.0.115.0, even if a socket policy file isn't required, a warning is displayed when using the Flash Debug Player if the target host doesn't serve a socket policy file.

However, in Adobe AIR, content in the application security sandbox (content installed with the AIR application) are not restricted by these security limitations.

For more information related to security, see the following:

  • The security chapter in the Programming ActionScript 3.0 book and the latest comments on LiveDocs
  • The security chapter in the Programming ActionScript 3.0 book and the latest comments on LiveDocs
  • The Flash Player Developer Center Topic: Security

View the examples



Public Properties
 PropertyDefined By
  bytesAvailable : uint
[read-only] The number of bytes of data available for reading in the input buffer.
Socket
  connected : Boolean
[read-only] Indicates whether this Socket object is currently connected.
Socket
 Inheritedconstructor : Object
A reference to the class object or constructor function for a given object instance.
Object
  endian : String
Indicates the byte order for the data; possible values are constants from the flash.utils.Endian class, Endian.BIG_ENDIAN or Endian.LITTLE_ENDIAN.
Socket
  objectEncoding : uint
Controls the version of AMF used when writing or reading an object.
Socket
 Inheritedprototype : Object
[static] A reference to the prototype object of a class or function object.
Object
  timeout : uint
Indicates the number of milliseconds to wait for a connection.
Socket
Public Methods
 MethodDefined By
  
Socket(host:String = null, port:int = 0)
Creates a new Socket object.
Socket
 Inherited
addEventListener(type:String, listener:Function, useCapture:Boolean = false, priority:int = 0, useWeakReference:Boolean = false):void
Registers an event listener object with an EventDispatcher object so that the listener receives notification of an event.
EventDispatcher
  
Closes the socket.
Socket
  
connect(host:String, port:int):void
Connects the socket to the specified host and port.
Socket
 Inherited
Dispatches an event into the event flow.
EventDispatcher
  
Flushes any accumulated data in the socket's output buffer.
Socket
 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
 Inherited
Indicates whether the specified property exists and is enumerable.
Object
  
Reads a Boolean value from the socket.
Socket
  
Reads a signed byte from the socket.
Socket
  
readBytes(bytes:ByteArray, offset:uint = 0, length:uint = 0):void
Reads the number of data bytes specified by the length parameter from the socket.
Socket
  
Reads an IEEE 754 double-precision floating-point number from the socket.
Socket
  
Reads an IEEE 754 single-precision floating-point number from the socket.
Socket
  
Reads a signed 32-bit integer from the socket.
Socket
  
readMultiByte(length:uint, charSet:String):String
Reads a multibyte string from the byte stream, using the specified character set.
Socket
  
Reads an object from the socket, encoded in AMF serialized format.
Socket
  
Reads a signed 16-bit integer from the socket.
Socket
  
Reads an unsigned byte from the socket.
Socket
  
Reads an unsigned 32-bit integer from the socket.
Socket
  
Reads an unsigned 16-bit integer from the socket.
Socket
  
Reads a UTF-8 string from the socket.
Socket
  
Reads the number of UTF-8 data bytes specified by the length parameter from the socket, and returns a string.
Socket
 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
  
Writes a Boolean value to the socket.
Socket
  
Writes a byte to the socket.
Socket
  
writeBytes(bytes:ByteArray, offset:uint = 0, length:uint = 0):void
Writes a sequence of bytes from the specified byte array.
Socket
  
Writes an IEEE 754 double-precision floating-point number to the socket.
Socket
  
Writes an IEEE 754 single-precision floating-point number to the socket.
Socket
  
Writes a 32-bit signed integer to the socket.
Socket
  
Writes a multibyte string from the byte stream, using the specified character set.
Socket
  
Write an object to the socket in AMF serialized format.
Socket
  
Writes a 16-bit integer to the socket.
Socket
  
Writes a 32-bit unsigned integer to the socket.
Socket
  
Writes the following data to the socket: a 16-bit unsigned integer, which indicates the length of the specified UTF-8 string in bytes, followed by the string itself.
Socket
  
Writes a UTF-8 string to the socket.
Socket
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 when the server closes the socket connection.Socket
  Dispatched when a network connection has been established.Socket
 Inherited[broadcast event] Dispatched when the Flash Player or AIR application operating loses system focus and is becoming inactive.EventDispatcher
  Dispatched when an input/output error occurs that causes a send or load operation to fail.Socket
  Dispatched if a call to Socket.connect() attempts to connect either to a server outside the caller's security sandbox or to a port lower than 1024.Socket
  Dispatched when a socket has received data.Socket
Property Detail

bytesAvailable

property
bytesAvailable:uint  [read-only]

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

The number of bytes of data available for reading in the input buffer.

Your code must access bytesAvailable to ensure that sufficient data is available before trying to read it with one of the read methods.



Implementation
    public function get bytesAvailable():uint

connected

property 
connected:Boolean  [read-only]

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

Indicates whether this Socket object is currently connected. A call to this property returns a value of true if the socket is currently connected, or false otherwise.



Implementation
    public function get connected():Boolean

endian

property 
endian:String

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

Indicates the byte order for the data; possible values are constants from the flash.utils.Endian class, Endian.BIG_ENDIAN or Endian.LITTLE_ENDIAN.

The default value is Endian.BIG_ENDIAN.



Implementation
    public function get endian():String
    public function set endian(value:String):void

See also

objectEncoding

property 
objectEncoding:uint

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

Controls the version of AMF used when writing or reading an object.



Implementation
    public function get objectEncoding():uint
    public function set objectEncoding(value:uint):void

See also

timeout

property 
timeout:uint

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: Flash Player 10, AIR 1.5

Indicates the number of milliseconds to wait for a connection.

If the connection doesn't succeed within the specified time, the connection fails. The default value is 20,000 (twenty seconds).



Implementation
    public function get timeout():uint
    public function set timeout(value:uint):void
Constructor Detail

Socket

()Constructor
public function Socket(host:String = null, port:int = 0)

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

Creates a new Socket object. If no parameters are specified, an initially disconnected socket is created. If parameters are specified, a connection is attempted to the specified host and port.

Note: It is strongly advised to use the constructor form without parameters, then add any event listeners, then call the connect method with host and port parameters. This sequence guarantees that all event listeners will work properly.

Parameters
host:String (default = null) — A fully qualified DNS domain name or an IP address in the form 111.222.333.444. In Flash Player 9.0.115.0 and AIR 1.0 and later, you can specify IPv6 addresses, such as rtmp://[2001:db8:ccc3:ffff:0:444d:555e:666f]. You can also specify null to connect to the host server on which the SWF file resides. If the SWF file issuing this call is running in a web browser, host must be in the same domain as the SWF file.
 
port:int (default = 0) — The TCP port number on the target host used to establish a connection. In Flash Player 9.0.124.0 and later, the target host must serve a socket policy file specifying that socket connections are permitted from the host serving the SWF file to the specified port. In earlier versions of Flash Player, a socket policy file is required only if you want to connect to a port number below 1024, or if you want to connect to a host other than the one serving the SWF file.

Events
connect:Event — Dispatched when a network connection has been established.
 
ioError:IOErrorEvent — Dispatched when an input/output error occurs that causes the connection to fail.
 
securityError:SecurityErrorEvent Dispatched if a call to Socket.connect() attempts to connect either to a server that doesn't serve a socket policy file, or to a server whose policy file doesn't grant the calling host access to the specified port. For more information about socket policy files, see the "Flash Player Security" chapter in Programming ActionScript 3.0.

Throws
SecurityError — This error occurs in SWF content for the following reasons:
  • Local-with-filesystem files cannot communicate with the Internet. You can work around this problem by reclassifying this SWF file as local-with-networking or trusted. This limitation is not set for AIR application content in the application security sandbox.
  • You cannot specify a socket port higher than 65535.
Method Detail

close

()method
public function close():void

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

Closes the socket. You cannot read or write any data after the close() method has been called.

The close event is dispatched only when the server closes the connection; it is not dispatched when you call the close() method.

You can reuse the Socket object by calling the connect() method on it again.


Throws
IOError — The socket could not be closed, or the socket was not open.

connect

()method 
public function connect(host:String, port:int):void

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

Connects the socket to the specified host and port. If the connection fails immediately, either an event is dispatched or an exception is thrown: an error event is dispatched if a host was specified, and an exception is thrown if no host was specified. Otherwise, the status of the connection is reported by an event. If the socket is already connected, the existing connection is closed first.

Parameters

host:String — The name or IP address of the host to connect to. If no host is specified, the host that is contacted is the host where the calling file resides. If you do not specify a host, use an event listener to determine whether the connection was successful.
 
port:int — The port number to connect to.


Events
connect:Event — Dispatched when a network connection has been established.
 
ioError:IOErrorEvent — Dispatched if a host is specified and an input/output error occurs that causes the connection to fail.
 
securityError:SecurityErrorEvent — Dispatched if a call to Socket.connect() attempts to connect either to a server that doesn't serve a socket policy file, or to a server whose policy file doesn't grant the calling host access to the specified port. For more information, see the "Flash Player Security" chapter in Programming ActionScript 3.0.

Throws
IOError — No host was specified and the connection failed.
 
SecurityError — This error occurs in SWF content for the following reasons:
  • Local untrusted SWF files may not communicate with the Internet. You can work around this limitation by reclassifying the file as local-with-networking or as trusted.
  • You cannot specify a socket port higher than 65535.
  • In the HTML page that contains the SWF content, the allowNetworking parameter of the object and embed tags is set to "none".

flush

()method 
public function flush():void

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

Flushes any accumulated data in the socket's output buffer. Data written by the write methods is not immediately transmitted; it is queued until the flush() method is called.


Throws
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

readBoolean

()method 
public function readBoolean():Boolean

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

Reads a Boolean value from the socket. After reading a single byte, the method returns true if the byte is nonzero, and false otherwise.

Returns
Boolean — A value of true if the byte read is nonzero, otherwise false.

Throws
EOFError — There is insufficient data available to read.
 
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

readByte

()method 
public function readByte():int

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

Reads a signed byte from the socket.

Returns
int — A value from -128 to 127.

Throws
EOFError — There is insufficient data available to read.
 
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

readBytes

()method 
public function readBytes(bytes:ByteArray, offset:uint = 0, length:uint = 0):void

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

Reads the number of data bytes specified by the length parameter from the socket. The bytes are read into the specified byte array, starting at the position indicated by offset.

Parameters

bytes:ByteArray — The ByteArray object to read data into.
 
offset:uint (default = 0) — The offset at which data reading should begin in the byte array.
 
length:uint (default = 0) — The number of bytes to read. The default value of 0 causes all available data to be read.


Throws
EOFError — There is insufficient data available to read.
 
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

readDouble

()method 
public function readDouble():Number

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

Reads an IEEE 754 double-precision floating-point number from the socket.

Returns
Number — An IEEE 754 double-precision floating-point number.

Throws
EOFError — There is insufficient data available to read.
 
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

readFloat

()method 
public function readFloat():Number

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

Reads an IEEE 754 single-precision floating-point number from the socket.

Returns
Number — An IEEE 754 single-precision floating-point number.

Throws
EOFError — There is insufficient data available to read.
 
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

readInt

()method 
public function readInt():int

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

Reads a signed 32-bit integer from the socket.

Returns
int — A value from -2147483648 to 2147483647.

Throws
EOFError — There is insufficient data available to read.
 
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

readMultiByte

()method 
public function readMultiByte(length:uint, charSet:String):String

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

Reads a multibyte string from the byte stream, using the specified character set.

Parameters

length:uint — The number of bytes from the byte stream to read.
 
charSet:String — The string denoting the character set to use to interpret the bytes. Possible character set strings include "shift_jis", "CN-GB", and "iso-8859-1". For a complete list, see Supported Character Sets.

Note: If the value for the charSet parameter is not recognized by the current system, then the application uses the system's default code page as the character set. For example, a value for the charSet parameter, as in myTest.readMultiByte(22, "iso-8859-01") that uses 01 instead of 1 might work on your development machine, but not on another machine. On the other machine, the application will use the system's default code page.

Returns
String — A UTF-8 encoded string.

Throws
EOFError — There is insufficient data available to read.

readObject

()method 
public function readObject():*

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

Reads an object from the socket, encoded in AMF serialized format.

Returns
* — The deserialized object

Throws
EOFError — There is insufficient data available to read.
 
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

See also

readShort

()method 
public function readShort():int

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

Reads a signed 16-bit integer from the socket.

Returns
int — A value from -32768 to 32767.

Throws
EOFError — There is insufficient data available to read.
 
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

readUnsignedByte

()method 
public function readUnsignedByte():uint

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

Reads an unsigned byte from the socket.

Returns
uint — A value from 0 to 255.

Throws
EOFError — There is insufficient data available to read.
 
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

readUnsignedInt

()method 
public function readUnsignedInt():uint

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

Reads an unsigned 32-bit integer from the socket.

Returns
uint — A value from 0 to 4294967295.

Throws
EOFError — There is insufficient data available to read.
 
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

readUnsignedShort

()method 
public function readUnsignedShort():uint

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

Reads an unsigned 16-bit integer from the socket.

Returns
uint — A value from 0 to 65535.

Throws
EOFError — There is insufficient data available to read.
 
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

readUTF

()method 
public function readUTF():String

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

Reads a UTF-8 string from the socket. The string is assumed to be prefixed with an unsigned short integer that indicates the length in bytes.

Returns
String — A UTF-8 string.

Throws
EOFError — There is insufficient data available to read.
 
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

readUTFBytes

()method 
public function readUTFBytes(length:uint):String

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

Reads the number of UTF-8 data bytes specified by the length parameter from the socket, and returns a string.

Parameters

length:uint — The number of bytes to read.

Returns
String — A UTF-8 string.

Throws
EOFError — There is insufficient data available to read.
 
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

writeBoolean

()method 
public function writeBoolean(value:Boolean):void

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

Writes a Boolean value to the socket. This method writes a single byte, with either a value of 1 (true) or 0 (false).

Note: Data written by this method is not immediately transmitted; it is queued until the flush() method is called.

Parameters

value:Boolean — The value to write to the socket: 1 (true) or 0 (false).


Throws
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

See also

writeByte

()method 
public function writeByte(value:int):void

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

Writes a byte to the socket.

Note: Data written by this method is not immediately transmitted; it is queued until the flush() method is called.

Parameters

value:int — The value to write to the socket. The low 8 bits of the value are used; the high 24 bits are ignored.


Throws
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

See also

writeBytes

()method 
public function writeBytes(bytes:ByteArray, offset:uint = 0, length:uint = 0):void

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

Writes a sequence of bytes from the specified byte array. The write operation starts at the position specified by offset.

If you omit the length parameter the default length of 0 causes the method to write the entire buffer starting at offset.

If you also omit the offset parameter, the entire buffer is written.

If offset or length is out of range, they are adjusted to match the beginning and end of the bytes array.

Note: Data written by this method is not immediately transmitted; it is queued until the flush() method is called.

Parameters

bytes:ByteArray — The ByteArray object to write data from.
 
offset:uint (default = 0) — The zero-based offset into the bytes ByteArray object at which data writing should begin.
 
length:uint (default = 0) — The number of bytes to write. The default value of 0 causes the entire buffer to be written, starting at the value specified by the offset parameter.


Throws
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

See also

writeDouble

()method 
public function writeDouble(value:Number):void

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

Writes an IEEE 754 double-precision floating-point number to the socket.

Note: Data written by this method is not immediately transmitted; it is queued until the flush() method is called.

Parameters

value:Number — The value to write to the socket.


Throws
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

See also

writeFloat

()method 
public function writeFloat(value:Number):void

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

Writes an IEEE 754 single-precision floating-point number to the socket.

Note: Data written by this method is not immediately transmitted; it is queued until the flush() method is called.

Parameters

value:Number — The value to write to the socket.


Throws
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

See also

writeInt

()method 
public function writeInt(value:int):void

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

Writes a 32-bit signed integer to the socket.

Note: Data written by this method is not immediately transmitted; it is queued until the flush() method is called.

Parameters

value:int — The value to write to the socket.


Throws
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

See also

writeMultiByte

()method 
public function writeMultiByte(value:String, charSet:String):void

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

Writes a multibyte string from the byte stream, using the specified character set.

Note: Data written by this method is not immediately transmitted; it is queued until the flush() method is called.

Parameters

value:String — The string value to be written.
 
charSet:String — The string denoting the character set to use to interpret the bytes. Possible character set strings include "shift_jis", "CN-GB", and "iso-8859-1". For a complete list, see Supported Character Sets.

See also

writeObject

()method 
public function writeObject(object:*):void

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

Write an object to the socket in AMF serialized format.

Note: Data written by this method is not immediately transmitted; it is queued until the flush() method is called.

Parameters

object:* — The object to be serialized.


Throws
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

See also

writeShort

()method 
public function writeShort(value:int):void

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

Writes a 16-bit integer to the socket. The bytes written are as follows:

(v >> 8) & 0xff v & 0xff

The low 16 bits of the parameter are used; the high 16 bits are ignored.

Note: Data written by this method is not immediately transmitted; it is queued until the flush() method is called.

Parameters

value:int — The value to write to the socket.


Throws
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

See also

writeUnsignedInt

()method 
public function writeUnsignedInt(value:uint):void

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

Writes a 32-bit unsigned integer to the socket.

Note: Data written by this method is not immediately transmitted; it is queued until the flush() method is called.

Parameters

value:uint — The value to write to the socket.


Throws
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

See also

writeUTF

()method 
public function writeUTF(value:String):void

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

Writes the following data to the socket: a 16-bit unsigned integer, which indicates the length of the specified UTF-8 string in bytes, followed by the string itself.

Before writing the string, the method calculates the number of bytes that are needed to represent all characters of the string.

Note: Data written by this method is not immediately transmitted; it is queued until the flush() method is called.

Parameters

value:String — The string to write to the socket.


Throws
RangeError — The length is larger than 65535.
 
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

See also

writeUTFBytes

()method 
public function writeUTFBytes(value:String):void

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

Writes a UTF-8 string to the socket.

Note: Data written by this method is not immediately transmitted; it is queued until the flush() method is called.

Parameters

value:String — The string to write to the socket.


Throws
IOError — An I/O error occurred on the socket, or the socket is not open.

See also

Event Detail

close

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

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

Dispatched when the server closes the socket connection. The close event is dispatched only when the server closes the connection; it is not dispatched when you call the Socket.close() method.

The Event.CLOSE constant defines the value of the type property of a close 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 object whose connection has been closed.

connect

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

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

Dispatched when a network connection has been established.

The Event.CONNECT constant defines the value of the type property of a connect 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 Socket or XMLSocket object that has established a network connection.

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

Dispatched when an input/output error occurs that causes a send or load operation to fail.

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.

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

Dispatched if a call to Socket.connect() attempts to connect either to a server outside the caller's security sandbox or to a port lower than 1024.

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.

See also

socketData

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

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

Dispatched when a socket has received data. Events of type socketData do not use the ProgressEvent.bytesTotal property.

Defines the value of the type property of a socketData 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.
bytesLoadedThe number of items or bytes loaded at the time the listener processes the event.
bytesTotal0; this property is not used by socketData event objects.
targetThe Socket object reporting progress.
SocketExample.as

The following example reads from and writes to a socket and outputs information transmitted during socket events. Highlights of the example follow:
  1. The constructor creates a CustomSocket instance named socket and passes the host name localhost and port 80 as arguments. Since CustomSocket extends Socket, a call to super() calls Socket's constructor.
  2. The example then calls the configureListeners() method, which adds listeners for Socket events.
  3. Finally, the socket connect() method is called with localhost as the host name and 80 as the port number.

Note: To run the example, you need a server running on the same domain where the SWF resides (in the example, localhost) and listening on port 80.


package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;

    public class SocketExample extends Sprite {

        public function SocketExample() {
            var socket:CustomSocket = new CustomSocket("localhost", 80);
        }
    }
}

import flash.errors.*;
import flash.events.*;
import flash.net.Socket;

class CustomSocket extends Socket {
    private var response:String;

    public function CustomSocket(host:String = null, port:uint = 0) {
        super();
        configureListeners();
        if (host && port)  {
            super.connect(host, port);
        }
    }

    private function configureListeners():void {
        addEventListener(Event.CLOSE, closeHandler);
        addEventListener(Event.CONNECT, connectHandler);
        addEventListener(IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, ioErrorHandler);
        addEventListener(SecurityErrorEvent.SECURITY_ERROR, securityErrorHandler);
        addEventListener(ProgressEvent.SOCKET_DATA, socketDataHandler);
    }

    private function writeln(str:String):void {
        str += "\n";
        try {
            writeUTFBytes(str);
        }
        catch(e:IOError) {
            trace(e);
        }
    }

    private function sendRequest():void {
        trace("sendRequest");
        response = "";
        writeln("GET /");
        flush();
    }

    private function readResponse():void {
        var str:String = readUTFBytes(bytesAvailable);
        response += str;
    }

    private function closeHandler(event:Event):void {
        trace("closeHandler: " + event);
        trace(response.toString());
    }

    private function connectHandler(event:Event):void {
        trace("connectHandler: " + event);
        sendRequest();
    }

    private function ioErrorHandler(event:IOErrorEvent):void {
        trace("ioErrorHandler: " + event);
    }

    private function securityErrorHandler(event:SecurityErrorEvent):void {
        trace("securityErrorHandler: " + event);
    }

    private function socketDataHandler(event:ProgressEvent):void {
        trace("socketDataHandler: " + event);
        readResponse();
    }
}