User Guide

ColdFusion to ActionScript data conversion issues 69
The following is additional information on conversion from server data types to ActionScript
data types:
• If a string data type on the server represents a valid number in ActionScript, Flash can
automatically cast it to a number if needed.
• If you use the setType() method to assign an object type to a flashgateway.io.ASObject object
on the server, and the type name matches the name of a registered class in ActionScript, Flash
Remoting creates an instance of that type in ActionScript. For more information see “Working
with ActionScript typed objects” on page 71.
• To return multiple, independent, values to your Flash application, place them in a complex
server variable that can hold all the required data, such as a variable that converts to a Flash
Object, Array, or Associative Array data type. Return the single variable and use its elements in
the Flash application.
ColdFusion to ActionScript data conversion issues
ColdFusion is a loosely typed (untyped) language, where the data type of a variable can be
ambiguous. As a result, Flash Remoting cannot always determine how to convert between
ColdFusion data and ActionScript data. Boolean data in ColdFusion
If a ColdFusion page or CFC returns Boolean values, it represents these values as strings. Flash
does not have rules for converting strings to Boolean values. Instead, it converts the string to a
number, and then converts the number to a Boolean value. This operation converts all
representations of Boolean values except 1, which equates to the Boolean value of
true, to false.
Therefore Flash converts ColdFusion Boolean values of
"Yes", "True", and true to false.
To return a Boolean value correctly from ColdFusion to ActionScript, do either of the following:
• Return a 1 (true) or 0 (false) numeric or string value. For example, the following function
converts any ColdFusion Boolean value to a value that ActionScript can use correctly. (For
simplicity, this example omits error-handling code.) Your ColdFusion page can call this
function before returning a Boolean value to Flash Remoting:
<cffunction name="convertBool">
<cfif Arguments[1] >
<cfreturn "1">
<cfelse>
<cfreturn "0">
</cfif>
</cffunction>
• Specify the returnType="boolean" attribute in the cffunction tag, as in the following
example. When a Flash application calls this ColdFusion function as a service, the function
returns a valid Boolean value of
true to Flash.
<cffunction name="getBool" access="remote" returntype="boolean">
<cfset foo = True>
<cfreturn foo>
</cffunction>