Quicktip: Getting the GET params in ActionScript

So, you want to get the content of a GET variable, like «http://nytimes.com/?id=dork» the id from the URL of that web page. Using a server side script like PHP in conjunction with ActionScript you can use $_GET['id'] and print that to a FlashVars on the page in which the swf file is embedded. That sounds like a tedious solution, and what if you can't control the server side scripting? Well, good news, using the spanking new ExternalInterface api for ActionScript 3 we can get the id value passing a bit of JavaScript.

var myStr:String = ExternalInterface.call("window.location.search.substring", 1);

Note that this will accually give you the entire string "id=dork", so you will have to split it on the equal sign.

var myParams:Array = myStr.split("=");
var param:String = myParams[1];

There you have it.. no server side scripting, only ActionScript and javaScript, all from within the one swf file.