We use this JSON file in the following code example to parse the values from the loaded JSON object using JSON.parse(), and then format the values within a basic TextField within our AIR Application

package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.events.Event;
    import flash.net.URLLoader;
    import flash.net.URLRequest;
    import flash.text.TextField;
    import flash.text.TextFormat;

    [SWF(width="600", height="500", backgroundColor="#CCCCCC")]

    public class ReadJSON extends Sprite {

        private var traceField:TextField;
        private var json:URLLoader;
        private var parsedJSON:Object;

        public function ReadJSON() {
            generateDisplayObjects();
            performOperations();
        }

        protected function generateDisplayObjects():void {
            var defaultFormat:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
            defaultFormat.font = "Arial";
            defaultFormat.size = 26;
            defaultFormat.color = 0xFFFFFF;

            traceField = new TextField();
            traceField.backgroundColor = 0x000000;
            traceField.alpha = 0.7;
            traceField.width = stage.stageWidth;
            traceField.height = stage.stageHeight;
            traceField.wordWrap = true;
            traceField.multiline = true;
            traceField.background = true;
            traceField.defaultTextFormat = defaultFormat;
            addChild(traceField);
        }

        protected function performOperations():void {
            json = new URLLoader();
            json.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, parseJSON);
            json.load(new URLRequest("assets/data.json"));

            traceField.appendText("Loading JSON file...
");
        }

        protected function parseJSON(e:Event):void {
            traceField.appendText("JSON file loaded successfully!
");
            traceField.appendText("Parsing JSON...

");
            traceField.appendText("RESULTS:
");

            parsedJSON = JSON.parse(json.data);

            traceField.appendText("firstName: " + parsedJSON.firstName + "
");
            traceField.appendText("lastName: " + parsedJSON.lastName + "
");
            traceField.appendText("address.streetAddress: " + parsedJSON.address.streetAddress + "
");
            traceField.appendText("address.city: " + parsedJSON.address.city + "
");
            traceField.appendText("address.state: " + parsedJSON.address.state + "
");
            traceField.appendText("address.postalCode: " + parsedJSON.address.postalCode + "
");
            for(var i:int = 0; i<parsedJSON.phoneNumber.length; i++){
                traceField.appendText(parsedJSON.phoneNumber[i].type + ": " + parsedJSON.phoneNumber[i].number + "
");
            }
        }

    }
}

As you can see, dealing with JSON is very similar to dealing with XML within ActionScript. Parsing our imported JSON and outputting the data into a TextField renders similar to Figure 7-1.

Figure 7-1. Parsed JSON output

To actually write JSON from within an AIR project, we need to employ the JSON.stringify() method as demonstrated in the following code example.

package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.text.TextField;
    import flash.text.TextFormat;

    [SWF(width="600", height="500", backgroundColor="#CCCCCC")]

    public class WriteJSON extends Sprite {

        private var traceField:TextField;
        private var jsonObject:Object;

        public function WriteJSON() {
            generateDisplayObjects();
            performOperations();
        }

        protected function generateDisplayObjects():void {
            var defaultFormat:TextFormat = new TextFormat();
            defaultFormat.font = "Arial";
            defaultFormat.size = 26;
            defaultFormat.color = 0xFFFFFF;

            traceField = new TextField();
            traceField.backgroundColor = 0x000000;
            traceField.alpha = 0.7;
            traceField.width = stage.stageWidth;
            traceField.height = stage.stageHeight;
            traceField.wordWrap = true;
            traceField.multiline = true;
            traceField.background = true;
            traceField.defaultTextFormat = defaultFormat;
            addChild(traceField);
        }

        protected function performOperations():void {
            traceField.appendText("Forming Object in ActionScript...
");

            jsonObject = new Object();
            jsonObject.firstName = "Edgar";
            jsonObject.middleName = "Allan";
            jsonObject.lastName = "Poe";
            jsonObject.birthDate = 1809;
            jsonObject.deathDate = 1849;
            jsonObject.nationality = "American";
            jsonObject.birthPlace = "Boston, Massachusetts";

            traceField.appendText("Stringify in progress...

");

            var newJSON:Object = JSON.stringify(jsonObject, null, 4);

            traceField.appendText("RESULT:
");
            traceField.appendText(newJSON.toString());
        }

    }
}

The JSON.stringify() method will convert the ActionScript object we’ve assembled into complete JSON syntax. This assumes that all data types within the object are of a type that can be converted into JSON.

The first argument that we pass into this method is the actual object which we want to convert. The second argument is an optional replacer function (or array) that can be used to transform or filter the key/value pairs in the object to be converted. This could be used in case we want to exclude certain key/value pairs, for instance, from the actual output.

The final argument specifies the amount of spaces to insert before each piece of data in order to make it more human-readable. In this example, we are passing in the number 4, specifying that the method should prepend 4 whitespace characters before each entry. This is how we achieve the spacing and readability in Figure 7-2.

Figure 7-2. Stringified object output

Figure 7-2 demonstrates the stringified output from our example.