I was just reading this article about the closing of WebMonkey. One of the things they mentioned were “stunt journalism” articles where they would do things such as write chat engines, or search engines in four lines of code.
Hmm… pretty interesting. So, knowing the ingenuity of the Flash community, I thought I would see what you could do. So, lets start off with something easy, can you create a search engine in Flash in 4 lines of code or less? If so, post the code in the comments (you can use any components included with Flash MX 2004 Pro).
Comments
searchGoogle = function(what) {getURL(“http://www.google.com/search?q=“+what+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=nl&meta=”,”_blank”);}searchGoogle(“macromedia”);OK, this is a pretty lame attempt … great idea though Mike
Looking forward to seeing what people come up with!
4 lines of codes ? it depend on how many instruction you put in a line
continuing from peter elst’s comment…createClassObject(mx.controls.TextInput,’srcPhrase_txt’,0);createClassObject(mx.controls.Button,’srcButton_btn’,1);srcButton_btn._x = 100;srcButton_btn.onRelease = function(){getURL(“href=”http://www.google.com/search?q=”>http://www.google.com/search?q=”+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=”>http://www.google.com/search?q=”+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=”+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=”>http://www.google.com/search?q=”+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=”+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=”+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=“>http://www.google.com/search?q=“+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=“>http://www.google.com/search?q=“+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=“+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=“>http://www.google.com/search?q=“+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=“+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=“>http://www.google.com/search?q=“+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=“>http://www.google.com/search?q=“+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=“+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=“>http://www.google.com/search?q=“+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=“+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=“+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=“>http://www.google.com/search?q=“+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=“>http://www.google.com/search?q=“+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=“+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}”>http://www.google.com/search?q=“>http://www.google.com/search?q=“+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}
whoops that preview thing screwed up my code. take deux…createClassObject(mx.controls.TextInput,’srcPhrase_txt’,0);createClassObject(mx.controls.Button,’srcButton_btn’,1);srcButton_btn._x = 100;srcButton_btn.onRelease = function(){getURL(“http://www.google.com/search?q=“+srcPhrase_txt.text+”&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&meta=”,”_blank”);}
I wouldnt call opening new Google window “search engine”. Search engine could use Google to search for things, but it would still have to present the result in Flash.
You can simply call google through their api if you want to query their search enging and then capture the xml data back in your app.About the 4 lines of code… unless it’s just a query forwarding (as the ones above) I don’t other way….
Boy I would love to have a php script to get thesaurus definitions from Merriam Webster to use in my new TTS flash/shockwave chat bot. Just learning php, and hoping the answer will magically appear here!
Even with the Google API and the web service component, I’m over 4 lines just with the html formatting and event listeners. And that’s kind of cheating because the component surely has a few hundred lines. Oh well.
yuks,both _x and onRelease can be placed in an object and passed as the 4th parameter in createClassObject, thereby reclaiming 2 lines of code…. maybe? How do yo define a line of code anyway?
OK, Michael McKellip and myself did a complete flash app google search not just a get URL. There are 2 versions posted one has 3 lines and the other is 4 lines. Both do the searching within flash and only bounce out to the result site when the title is clicked from flash. Download them out at http://www.richtretola.com/google/
function searchForText(text, searchString){return text.indexOf(searchString);}searchForText(“Once upon a time, Utilitarianism was neato.”, “time”);1, 2, 3, 4. Do I win?
http://www.darronschall.com/weblog/archives/000096.cfm
var result:Number = IF_SearchText_txt.text.indexOf(IF_SearchField_txt.text);if (IF_SearchField_txt.text != “” && result>=0) {Selection.setFocus(“_root.IF_SearchText_txt”);Selection.setSelection(result, result+IF_SearchField_txt.text.length);}If you just want to fint the index of the first instance of the searching text then all you need is the first line, the last three just test that the text you are searching for is not empty, then sets focus to the Input text that is holding the text, and then highlights the text.IF_SearchField_txt // Input Text ComponentIF_SearchText_txt // Input Text ComponentThe code should be invoked by a button, or some other event. change, etc.
The other option is to use the web services to connect to google. create a data grid component and bind the fields using the Component Inspector. The only code would be for an event to invoke the behavior.
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I just read this quote today and I think it’s awesome:It is by universal misunderstanding that all agree. For if, by ill luck, people understood each other, they would never agree.Charles BaudelaireJust thought I’d share.Mike
function search4( arr, str ) {var rtn = [];for ( var i=0; i<arr.length; i++ ) if ( arr[i].indexOf(str)!==-1 ) rtn.push(arr[i]);return rtn;}var contents_arr = ["the dog and duck", "the fizgig and firkin", "the blue ball", "the double locks", "the exchange"];var srch_matches = search4( contents_arr, “and” );alert(srch_matches);