AS3 LOAD CROSS-DOMAIN IMAGES

Thanks codeSmith, that worked!

I follow the logic of the code but there's something I don't understand:  I thought the absence of a crossdomain.xml file on a remote server prevented a file from being loaded at all, period.   So how are you able to do it?  What's the difference between accessing the lInfo.loader.content vs. lInfo.loader based on whether or not there's a crossdomain file?

I ran into a similar problem a few months ago.. it turns out that when a crossdomain.xml file doesn't exist.. you have about a 99% chance of the image not loading.. technically by the time you find out if there is a crossdomain.xml fiel or not you have already initiated the file load.. and you can still load the file using the workaround.

whats the difference between the 2 approaches? nothing really.. you can access the image both ways.. but one requires an extra step (adding to a sprite) but by checking lInfo.loader.content you know if you need to take the extra steps or not.

I have been testing your solution for a couple of weeks and, although I'm impressed with it, I've discovered that it isn't 100% reliable.  So, I've attached a code snippet of my solution for loading an external image using PHP, which works for me all the time, as a service to anyone else who has a similiar problem.

Basically, what I'm doing is calling the image through a PHP script, located on my server.  The PHP script, which isn't blocked by any crossdomain.xml file, will load any image that can be viewable from a browser.  The image, once called by PHP, is automatically sent to the Flash file as if Flash were loading it itself.  I wouldn't suggest using this solution with every image you load, because it's adding another step that your server has to to go through to load the file.  However, in the case where I'm only trying to load a few advertisements from another server that may or may not have a crossdomain.xml file installed, it's a handy solution.

Here is how I go about loading the image through Flash:

var rand:uint = Math.floor(Math.random()*9999999);
var loader:Loader = new Loader();
loader.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE,imgLoaded);
var imageFile:String = escape(http://domain.com/image_from_other_server_I_want_to_load);
var myFile:String = 'http://www.mydomain.com/load_my_image.php?file='+imageFile+'&n='+rand;
loader.load(new URLRequest(myFile));

The AS3 code above simply passes the escaped URL (make sure it's escaped) of the image I want to load to the imgload.php script located on my server.  The PHP file returns the loaded image to flash and the imgLoaded function then does whatever it needs.   I set the time limit to 5 in the PHP script in case the image on the remote server isn't there, to force the script to die and not cause any long time delay/drag on my Flash file.

<?php
set_time_limit(5);
 
/* file name: load_my_image.php */
 
// be sure to decode file here, which was escaped 
// by actionscript
$file = rawurldecode($_GET['file']);
 
// get the correct MIME settings for this file
function getMIME($file) {
 
		$pos = strripos($file,'.');
		$suffix = substr($file,$pos+1);
		
		switch($suffix) {
			
			case 'jpg':
			case 'jpeg':
			case 'jpe':
			$mime = 'image/jpeg';
			break;
			
			case 'png':
			$mime = 'image/png';
			break;
			
			case 'gif':
			$mime = 'image/gif';
			break;
			
			case 'swf':
			$mime = 'application/x-shockwave-flash';
			break;
			
			default:
			$mime = 'image/jpeg';
			break;
				
		}
		
		return $mime;
		
}
 
 
// GET THE PATH OF THE TARGET IMAGE
if (isset($file)) {
	
    // READ THE CONTENTS OF THE IMAGE IN BINARY FORM
    $handle = fopen($file, "rb");
	
		if ($handle) {
	
			$contents = "";
			while (!feof($handle)) {$contents .= fread($handle, 8192);}
			fclose($handle);
			
		}
 
		else {exit;} // ANY TROUBLE LOADING THE IMAGE, JUST SKIP IT AND EXIT 
 
         // OUTPUT THE IMAGE SO FLASH CAN SEE IT
	$mime = getMIME($file);
	header("Content-Type: $mime");
         echo $contents;
	exit;
}
 
?>
                                              

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