Is it feasible to create a REST client with Flex?

Question

I\'m starting a project using a Restful architecture implemented in Java (using the new JAX-RS standard)

We are planning to develop the GUI with a Flex application.

Answer 1

RestfulX has solved most/all of the REST problems with Flex. It has support for Rails/GAE/Merb/CouchDB/AIR/WebKit, and I'm sure it would be a snap to connect it to your Java implementation.

Dima's integrated the AS3HTTPClient Library into it also.

Check it out!

Answer 2

I'm working right now on an application that relies heavily on REST calls between Flex and JavaScript and Java Servlets. We get around the response error code problem by establishing a convention of a <status id="XXX" name="YYYYYY"> block that gets returned upon error, with error IDs that roughly map to HTTP error codes.

We get around the cross-site scripting limitations by using a Java Servlet as an HTTP proxy. Calls to the proxy (which runs on the same server that serves the rest of the content, including the Flex content, sends the request to the other server, then sends the response back to the original caller.

Answer 3

May be the new flex 4 is the answer http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/flex4sdk/

Answer 4

Actually were are already using Flex with a Rest-Style Framework. As mbrevort already mentioned PUT and DELETE methods cannot be directly used. Instead we are doing PUT via a POST and for DELETE we are using a GET on a resource with an URL parameter like ?action=delete.

This is not 100% Rest style, so I am not sure, if this works with a JSR 311 implementation. You will need some flexbility on the server side to workaround the PUT and DELETE restrictions.

With regards to error handling, we have implemented an error service. In case of an server side error, the Flex application can query this error service to get the actual error message. This is also much more flexible than just mapping HTTP return codes to static messages.

However thanks To ECMA scripting of Flex working with XML based REST services is very easy.

Answer 5

I've been working on an open source replacement for the HTTPService component that fully supports REST. If interested, you can find the beta version (source code and/or compiled Flex shared runtime library) and instructions here:

http://code.google.com/p/resthttpservice/

Answer 6

The way I've managed this in the past is to utilize a PHP proxy that deals with the remote web service calls and returns RTU JSON to the client ..