a random utility class: ObjectSerializer.

I'm just going through and editing a few old posts. This package (objectSerializer) was one that was needed in the case of a serialized object needing to be passed through a url (yes, we had a case where that was needed).

package of.lovin
{
 import flash.utils.ByteArray;
 
 import mx.utils.Base64Decoder;
 import mx.utils.Base64Encoder;
 
 public class ObjectSerializer
 {

  public static function decode(str:String):*
  {
   // '+' equals '-'  and '/' equals '_'
   
   if (str != null)
   {
    
    var myPattern : RegExp = new RegExp("-", "g");
    var myPattern2 : RegExp = new RegExp("_", "g");
    var myPattern3 : RegExp = new RegExp("~", "g");
    
    var urlModifiedString : String = str;
     urlModifiedString = urlModifiedString.replace(myPattern,"=");
     urlModifiedString = urlModifiedString.replace(myPattern2,"/");
     urlModifiedString = urlModifiedString.replace(myPattern3,"\n");
     
    
    var bytes:ByteArray = new ByteArray();
    var bDecoder : Base64Decoder = new Base64Decoder();
     bDecoder.decode(urlModifiedString);
    bytes = bDecoder.toByteArray() ;
    
    bytes.position = 0;
    
    return bytes.readObject();
   }
   return null;
   
  }
  
  public static function encode(obj:*):String
  {
   // '+' equals '-'  and '/' equals '_'
   
   var bytes:ByteArray = new ByteArray();
    bytes.writeObject( obj );
   
   var bEncoder : Base64Encoder = new Base64Encoder();
    bEncoder.encodeBytes(bytes);

   var myPattern : RegExp = new RegExp("=", "g");
   var myPattern2 : RegExp = new RegExp("/", "g");
   var myPattern3 : RegExp = new RegExp('\n', "g");
   
   var urlModifiedString : String = bEncoder.toString();
    urlModifiedString = urlModifiedString.replace(myPattern,"-");
    urlModifiedString = urlModifiedString.replace(myPattern2,"_");
    urlModifiedString = urlModifiedString.replace(myPattern3,"~");
   
   return urlModifiedString ;
  }

 }
}

Flex Builder / Eclipse tip du jour.

It's inevitable. You'll be debugging a Flex application, get an error and will need to look at a class, object, function or the like. Instead of scrolling up and down, or digging through directories, do the following:

Ctrl-click on the 'identifier' in question and you're in like Flynn.

30th time is the charm?

Maybe it's a bad idea to start ANOTHER blog that may fall into the same ol' my-last-post-was-five-months-ago pit. But, what the hell...