I ran into something that at first confused me but once I figured out what I was missing it made sense. If you try to invoke a URL with URL parameters you will get an error. For example when trying to load them XML from my blog RSS feed with the following code:

<mx:HTTPService url="http://www.bpurcell.org/blog/rss.cfm?mode=short&mode2=cat&catid=14"
id="myHTTPData" method="GET" resultFormat="xml">

The above code will cause the following error in Flex, "HTTPService Fault: Parameters are not allowed in the url, use the request object".

The correct approach is to use the mx:request object within the HTTPService call. The following code illustrates an approach that works correctly

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.macromedia.com/2003/mxml" 
            initialize="myHTTPData.send();trace('calling service');">
<mx:Script>
<![CDATA[
  var myURL:String="http://www.bpurcell.org/blog/rss.cfm";
 var mode:String="short";
 var mode2:String="cat";
 var catid="14";
]]>
</mx:Script>
<!-- If you set resultFormat to Object it turns the returning data into an object -->
<mx:HTTPService url="{myURL}" id="myHTTPData" method="GET" resultFormat="object">
  <mx:request>
  <mode>{mode}</mode>
  <mode2>{mode2}</mode2>
  <catid>{catid}</catid>
 </mx:request> 
</mx:HTTPService>
<mx:TextArea text="{myHTTPData.result.RDF.channel.title}" width="250" />
<mx:TextArea text="{myHTTPData.result.RDF.item[0].description}" 
             width="250" height="200" />
<mx:TextArea text="{myHTTPData.result}" width="250" height="500" />
</mx:Application>

I need to pass the following query string/http request to FileMaker -

http://localhost:591/FMPro?-db=NGP.fp5&-format=-dso_xml&-find

I obviously can't create an Element with a leading '-' for the '-db' name to then pass the value 'NGP.fp5'. Any ideas on how I could work around this one?

Thank you for your time.

thnks

-- federico