Generate an SWF from an ActionScript source automatically, to be called from JavaScript

Question

I have some data-crunching code implemented in ActionScript, and I'd like to call it from JavaScript. The related question Interacting with actionscript 3.0 using javascript mentions the blog post http://blog.circlecube.com/2008/02/01/actionscript-javascript-communication/ which tells me how to do this. All I need now is generating the SWF file from the .as file completely automatically, with a comand-line tool on Linux. How is this possible?

Is there a speed difference between AS2 and AS3?

Simon Groenewolt · Accepted Answer · 2009-10-04 09:39:52Z

3

Get the free Flex SDK if you are using as3. (Use mtasc if you are using as2)

answered Oct 4, 2009 at 9:39

Simon Groenewolt

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3 Comments

pts Over a year ago

Thank you for the link to mtasc, it works for me. Do you have a tutorial for using the Flex SDK from the command line to compile an .as file to an .swf?

Simon Groenewolt Over a year ago

You know this handy search engine named google do you? ;-) It gave me this link: edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/AS3_Compiling_a_program

pts Over a year ago

Thank you for the link about how to run the AS3 compiler. This was enough to get me started, and I could figure out all I needed.

Lars Blåsjö · Accepted Answer · 2009-10-04 14:53:34Z

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"Is there a speed difference between AS2 and AS3?"

Yes, there is a huge difference, AS3 is much faster, especially in "data-crunching" and such operations, that you mention.

answered Oct 4, 2009 at 14:53

Lars Blåsjö

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pts Over a year ago

I'm interested in the numbers. According to my number crunching measurements, AS3 is only 4 times faster than AS2 (I'm not impressed, still 4 times slower than the JavaScript in Google Chrome), but only if I take care of using int vs Number properly, and using Vector.<int> instead of Array.

Richard Szalay Over a year ago

If performance is such a high priority, consider using Silverlight. Or if Chrome can do it faster than both FL/SL, just do it in JS.

pts · Accepted Answer · 2009-10-04 15:29:16Z

2

Answering my own question, AS3 can be up to 4 times faster than AS2 for number crunching (depending on the code tested), and Flash Player 10 is faster than Flash Player 9, especially Vector.<int> is much faster than Array.

I've summarized automatic SWF generation from AS2 and AS3 sources in my blog post: http://ptspts.blogspot.com/2009/10/how-to-create-actionscript-3-as3-flash.html. I had to collect information for that from dozens of web sites.

answered Oct 4, 2009 at 15:29

pts

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Comments

Allan · Accepted Answer · 2009-10-06 01:58:00Z

1

As the others have said yes AS3 is faster than AS2. There are a few other ways to squeeze more performance. One way is pixel bender which you can consider like writing a PixelShader for a GPU except here it is being calculated in software and not hardware. Also Alchemy has shown to improve some performance. Check out http://blog.joa-ebert.com/ The performance Joa is able to gain with various optimisations (some by optimising the byte code) is awesome.

I think this is the article but I am at work so I can not verify. http://blog.joa-ebert.com/2009/04/03/massive-amounts-of-3d-particles-without-alchemy-and-pixelbender/

answered Oct 6, 2009 at 1:58

Allan

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