Binding Web Service Response To Dropdownlist

[Jorge Llerena]

Dear Larry,

 

I recently got your book and eagerly read it (I've read and tried 7 chapters in 3 days).

I knew Flex when version 3 was in beta, but never programmed anything.

I've just finished chapter 8 and tried to bind the drop down list showing the Departments using a simple query to the database in the same fashion you populate the grid with the employees.

 

The PHP file i'm using is (getDepartments.php):

 

 

<?php

header('Content-Type: text/xml');

echo '<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?><departments>';

require_once('mysql.inc.php');

 

$dbc = mysqli_connect(DB_HOST, DB_USER, DB_PASSWORD, DB_NAME, 3306);

 

if ($dbc) {

$q = "SELECT * from departments ORDER by 1"; //printf("\n%s",$q);

$r = mysqli_query($dbc, $q);

 

if (mysqli_num_rows($r) > 0) {

while ($row = mysqli_fetch_array($r, MYSQLI_ASSOC)) {

echo "<department>

<id>{$row['id'] }</id>

<Name>{$row['name'] }</Name>

</department>

";} // End of WHILE loop

 

} // End of mysqli_num_rows( ) IF

 

} // End of $dbc IF

 

echo '</departments>';

?>

 

Inside the declarations section I declare:

 

 

<s:HTTPService id="getDepartmentsService" url="http://localhost/~Jorge/flex4ch08/getDepartments.php"

method="GET" resultFormat="e4x"

result="getDepartmentsResult(event)" fault="serviceFault(event)">

</s:HTTPService>

 

I included the script:

 

 

private function getDepartmentsResult(event:ResultEvent):void {

departmentsList= event.result.department;

}

 

And in the MXML application I tried:

 

 

<mx:FormItem label="Department">

<s:DropDownList id="employeeDepartment" dataProvider="{departmentsList}" labelField="name" prompt="Select one:"></s:DropDownList></mx:FormItem>

 

And keep getting the error:

1067: Implicit coercion of a value of type XMLList to an unrelated type mx.collections:IList

 

I thought I was very clever trying to replace the hardcoded list you included with this query which is now giving me headaches.

Can you help me?

[Jorge Llerena]

I'm sorry, It is not a web service, but rather an HTTPService...

[Larry]

Thanks for the interest in the book. Could you confirm the version of Flex you're using?

 

Also, you could formally perform the coercion:

departmentsList= event.result.department; as IList

 

And is there a benefit to creating a function that assigns the result to a variable rather than use the specific property of the result as the dataprovider?

[Matt]

Larry,

 

I have been working on this chapter as well, and although I haven't ran into any trouble, I still am curious about the following:

 

And is there a benefit to creating a function that assigns the result to a variable rather than use the specific property of the result as the dataprovider?

 

private function getDepartmentsResult(event:ResultEvent):void {
departmentsList= event.result.department;
}

 

If that was the line you were referring to, it comes straight out of your book (pg. 249). Why is it not beneficial to do it this way? I would think it's better separation of code.

[Larry]

D'oh! I wasn't looking at that in context. Nevermind...