While working with flash and asp.net web services I learned that you can send a custom class object to an ASMX. That service can then take your object and have it’s way with it. This is pretty killer because you can share custom classes between .net and as, assuming the class definitions match, and the datatypes don’t get too complex.

If you have to work with webservices from flash, checkout the WebService class. It’s sweet. So much so that I don’t understand why I even need Flash Remoting. I mean, I can send and receive my custom class on the flash side as well as the .net side.

Currently I only see the following limitations with this magic flash to soap communicado.

1. No test form on the .asmx page. For a typical asmx file, the .net server can generate a simple test form that you can use to test your webservice. It’s great, except for a service that expects your custom class as input
2. Simple data types. I haven’t tested the waters of what datatypes you can use in your custom object, but I’m guessing you can’t venture outside of the basic strings and numbers.

I’m pretty pumped about learning the AS WebService class. It’s so much nicer than the olden days of parsing name value pairs, or even a full on xml object. The WebService class does all the magic for you in flash, and you code up the result object as you’ve defined your custom object.

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