Flash Builder 4 introduces a rich set of tools for configuring access to data services. The Flash Builder documentation and tutorials can help you get started with writing PHP and ColdFusion services as well as configuring your applications to access these services.
However, the Flash Builder documentation examples and tutorials use client-side typing. You can also write PHP and ColdFusion services that implement server-side typing. Server-side typing simplifies the workflow in Flash Builder, and also provides server code that is easier to understand and maintain.
Client-side typing
Flash Builder uses client-side typing for services that do not specify data types for arguments or return values. To implement access to these services, Flash Builder needs to know the data types for the arguments and return values. Flash Builder tools introspects the services, prompting you to configure the necessary custom data types.
Here are links to the Flash Builder tutorials that use client-side typing:
This article provides documentation and an example for server-side typing in PHP. Later, I’ll provide a separate example for server-side typing in ColdFusion.
Server-side typing
Both PHP and ColdFusion allow you to define custom data types in server code. Flash Builder recognizes the custom data type during introspection of services. This simplifies the access to the service – you do not have to walk through wizard screens to configure custom data types.
This blog post contains an example for PHP that shows how to implement server-side typing. This basic application lists employees from a database. It also includes an input form to add new employees. This blog post contains the full source listing for both the client and server, plus a mini-tutorial.

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