Some help for a flah developer (file access and similar things)

#1

Hi, I’m coming from a flash background (in fact using the apache flex sdk) and would like to check out some “haxe ways” to make thing work. Where do I look for this info?

First, I’d like to learn about file access. For flex/air I use the File class. Some of my issues:

  • browse for file select
  • list files in a folder
  • run an executable file
  • open and read/write files on disk
  • search for some default system locations like user folder, desktop and so on

Then, I’d need to learn a way to mimic the native process class. Is there a way to do it on haxe, like staring a system process and keep watching and receiving its results?

Also, I’d love to learn how to work with sockets. On flex/air I use the SocketServer class a lot, how can I start a TCP server on haxe and keep wathing for connections?

Thank you a lot.

#2

First off, Haxe provides a sys define for “system” platforms (ones with file system access). This is helpful for wrapping this type of functionality. For example:

function writeFile (path:String):Void {
    
    #if sys
    File.saveContent (path, "Hello World");
    #end
    
}

Lime provides the following APIs:

  • lime.ui.FileDialog for browse, select, save dialogs
  • lime.system.System with default user, desktop (etc) file paths

OpenFL has openfl.net.FileReference which uses lime.ui.FileDialog under the hood, as well as openfl.net.Socket or openfl.net.XMLSocket for sockets

Haxe supports file and TCP networking

  • sys.io.File for reading and writing files
  • sys.io.FileSystem for making directories, listing paths
  • sys.io.Process for more complex background processes
  • Sys for setting the working directory, running a simple command, etc
  • sys.net.Socket for sockets (used by openfl.net.Socket)

I also know someone who just posted a networking library for Haxe, I haven’t tried it though:

Other defines from Lime may be helpful for distinguishing between platforms and environments, like windows, mac, linux, ios, android, desktop, mobile, native, flash, html5, web, etc.

#if (desktop && !windows)
#end