Macromedia flex 2-migrating applications to flex 2 User Manual

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Data Services
Flex 2 separates the definitions of services into a new file, services-config.xml. This file 
contains definitions of the services and security constraints that were previously in the flex-
config.xml file. Optionally, it can include other configuration files by reference. The services-
config.xml file is located in the flex_deploy_dir/flex/WEB-INF/flex directory of a web 
application in which you are using Flex Data Services. If you use the command-line compiler, 
you must point to this file with the -services option.
The underlying architecture for communicating with the server for each type of service is 
based on a new messaging framework in Flex 2. As a result, you use message channels to 
communicate with the service. You configure channels in the services-config.xml file. The 
new new messaging framework uses channels to connect clients to endpoints; requests are 
made by sending messages over channels to endpoints of a message broker that directs the 
messages to the correct service.
For information about the client-side configuration of RPC components, see Chapter 45, “Using RPC Components,” in the Flex 2 Developer’s Guide. For information about the server-
side configuration of RPC service destinations, see Chapter 46, “Configuring RPC Services” in the Flex 2 Developer’s Guide.
Proxy use policy
In Flex 1.5, there was as setting that let you override the proxy. This was the 
<proxy-use-
policy>
 setting in the flex-config.xml file. If you set it to 
client
, Flex checked the value of 
the 
useProxy
 attribute on the service tag. The default was to use the proxy. If you set it to 
always
, Flex used the proxy regardless of the value of the 
useProxy
 attribute. If you set it to 
never
, Flex did not use the proxy regardless of the value of the 
useProxy
 attribute.
The 
<proxy-use-policy>client</proxy-use-policy>
 setting does not exist in Flex 2. 
Flex behaves as if the value is 
client
, which means that Flex checks the value of the 
useProxy
 attribute on the service tag. The default value is 
false
. If this value is not set, Flex 
does not use the proxy.
Channels
Flex now requires that you specify a channel to define the way data is transported for each 
RPC service destination. Service requests and responses are now messages. Messages are sent 
and received on a channel, which represents a logical connection to a destination. Channels 
define a protocol and a port.
Each channel corresponds to one network transfer protocol that Flash Player supports. For 
example, the AMF channel uses the AMF format over HTTP and the HTTP channel uses a 
text-based format over HTTP.