The new Service Browser rocks. Try it out here if you like. A thing I want to point out is that if you have a fatal error in your service file, it will catch it and not NetConnection.Call.BadVersion on you. That’s because it’s writing and reading its own amf packets and will do some sanity checking (try calling HelloWorld.triggerAFatalError). It will also show NetDebug::trace output in the “trace” tab, despite this not being supported by RemoteObject for some reason (again, because it’s reading and writing it’s own amf packets). That being said, the non-test calls are routed through the regular RemoteObject so if there is any discrepancy between my code and the one the player outputs it should be caught early.
If your service uses session you WILL need to use the service browser in a web browser that accepts cookies as I have yet to figure out how to make it honor AppendToGatewayUrl headers.
I need you help with the service browser. I want it to be better, but I don’t have that much time, so here’s my laundry list, the source is right here, please comment if you’re interested in taking on these items.
- Clean up the current spaghetti-code mess
- Add Code Generation
- Make util/MethodTable smarter so it will catch more comments related to a function
- Show all JavaDoc tags in the service description, not just the param and returns tags.
- Format HTML properly when encountered
- Make the Tree view work for any and all objects
- Make the DataGrid view work when a RecordSet is nested inside something else
- Make it look better
About $this->methodTable
It’s gone for good. The single most annoying thing about amfphp has now been removed. All methods in classes of the service folder are now remotely callable by default. You can make a method non-remote by starting it with an underscore (same as with CakePHP), or by making it private or protected (PHP5 only). You can stop a method from being called (for example, for lack of proper credentials) by creating a beforeFilter($methodName) method and returning false to stop the call (same as with CakePHP, again).
_authenticate support has been temporarily removed (can be done with beforeFilter now), and pageable recordsets have been temporarily disabled as well. New methodologies will be introduced for these features in amfphp 2.0 final design symposium.
About recordsets
Currently, only mysql recordsets work. Since amfphp serializes about a dozen different recordset types normally, and I have made a bunch of changes, I will wait until everything is stable before re-enabling the other recordset types. If you need support for those types now, you can rewrite core/shared/adapters/dbnameAdapter.php, using mysqlAdapter.php as a guide.
Acknowledgments
This release would not have been possible without all the hard work of several people who I have borrowed code and ideas from. Big thanks to Zoltan of Fluorine (AMF3 code), Evert of SabreAMF (RemoteObject code), Karl of Charles debugging proxy (debugging needs), Kevin of ServiceCapture (first reverse-engineered AMF3), Aral Balkan for his suggestion of a Flex-based service browser, Renaun Erickson for his PHP4 array_search patch and VO handling code, the people at CakePHP for some of the JSON code, the people at PEAR::JSON, and Christophe Herreman for his original MethodTable class which is now the core of the Service Browser component.