haXe 2 Beginner's Guide

Benjamin Dasnois

• Verlag: Packt Publishing
• Jahr: 2011
• ISBN:
  9781849512565
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Ciencia de la computación
• Thema: Computación cliente-servidor

In Detail

haXe is the universal programming language that is completely cross-platform and provides a standard library that remains the same - regardless of platform.

haXe 2 Beginner's Guide will get you up and running with this exciting language and will guide you through its features in the easiest way possible.

haXe has filled the gap in creating multi-platform applications, and haXe 2 Beginner's Guide will fill the gap in learning all you need to know about haXe - even if it's the first time you have heard of it.

This book will enable you to fully realize haXe's potential for translating code from a haXe program into different languages.

Start with learning how to install haXe, work your way up to templating, and finally learn exactly how to make the same code work for multiple platforms. In between, find heaps of tricks and techniques and work with haXe's typing system. Learn about inheritance, go from learning what a parameter is to creating your own parameterized classes, and find out what the fuss is all about regarding the dynamic type.

By the time you are done with this book, you'll find yourself writing efficient haXe code for multiple platforms in less time than you can say "compatible".

Approach

This book is part of the Packt Beginner's Guide series. Written in an engaging style, it offers step-by-step examples with screenshots at key steps and clear explanation of what is happening in each task.

Who this book is for

This book is written for both Beginners and Developers who want to learn this multi-platform programming language to build web applications from scratch.

haXe 2

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Table of Contents

haxe 2

Credits

Foreword

About the Author

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more

Why subscribe?

Free access for Packt account holders

Preface

Here is haXe

Where and for what is haXe used?

Where is haXe used?

What is haXe used for?

One language to rule them all

Object-oriented programming

haXe versions

haXe and the new models of web applications

haXe as an universal language

Getting help

Reading some documentation

Asking questions

The haXe forum

The haXe mailing list

Some advice

Reading some blogs

Nicolas Cannasse

Weblob

GameHaXe

A Bug's Life

Blog.haxe.org

Helping the community

The mailing list and the forum

The wiki

Write on your blog or website

Writing libraries or tools

Talking about haXe

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Time for action – heading

What just happened?

Pop quiz – heading

Have a go hero – heading

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code for this book

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Getting to know haXe

Installing haXe

Two ways to install: The installer and sources compilation

Installing on Windows

Installing on MacOSX

Installing on Linux

Installing nightly builds

Verifying your installation

Choosing an editor

FlashDevelop 3

The TextMate bundle

VIM

Writing your first program

Time for action – Writing a Hello World

What just happened?

A program with some interaction

Time for action – Interacting with the user

What just happened?

Pop quiz – basic knowledge

Summary

2. Basic Syntax and Branching

Modules, packages, and classes

Packages

Modules

Classes

Accessing a class

Constants and its types

Booleans

Integers

Floats

Base 10

Scientific notation

Strings

Regular expressions

The null value

Flash9 and above

Binary and unary operators

Binary operators

Assigning values

Comparison operators

Arithmetic operators

Boolean operators

Bitwise operators

Unary operators

Blocks

Variable declaration and scope

Declaring a variable

At class level

Time for action – Declaring some fields

What just happened?

In a block of instructions

Field access and function calls

Constructing class instance

Conditional branching

If

Switch

Loops

While

For

Break and continue

Time for action – Using the break keyword

What just happened?

Time for action – Using the continue keyword

What just happened?

Return

Exception handling

Anonymous objects

Local functions

Managing a fridge

Time for action – Managing a fridge

What just happened?

Have a go hero – Throw Exceptions to prevent crashes

Summary

3. Being Cross-platform with haXe

What is cross-platform in the library

Object storage

The Std class

The haxe package

The haxe.remoting package

The haxe.rtti package

The haxe.Http class

Regular expressions and XML handling

Regular expressions

XML handling

Input and output

The DOM interface

The Flash interface

The standard input/output interface

Platform-specific packages

JavaScript

Flash

Neko

PHP

C++

Conditional compilation

Conditional compilation depending on flags

Conditional compilation depending on the target

The remap switch

Coding cross-platform using imports

Time for action – Welcoming the user on Neko & PHP

What just happened?

Pop quiz – Writing cross-platform code

Have a go hero – Handle XML

Time for action – Reading from the XML file

What just happened?

Time for action – Writing to an XML file

What just happened?

Testing our sample

Making it cross-platform

Summary

4. Understanding Types

Explicitly typed variables

Static typing

Values with several types

Defining a type

Inheritance

Multi-inheritance

Implementing an interface

Representing a blog article

Time for action – Representing different types of articles

Function's type

Expressing a function's type

Functions using functions

Dynamic functions

Anonymous objects

Duck typing

Creating a function to apply another one

Time for action – Applying a function on every item

What just happened?

Type inference

Assigning a value

Assigning the value of the variable to another one

Passing the variable as a parameter

Casting

Safe casting

Unsafe casting

Untyped

Type parameters

Usage of Type parameters

Creating a parameterized class

Constraint parameters

Extending the fridge

Time for action – A fridge with constraints

What just happened?

Have a go hero – Creating a typed container

Pop quiz – Verify your knowledge

Summary

5. The Dynamic Type and Properties

Freeing yourself from the typing system

Time for action – Assigning to Dynamic variables

Time for action – Assigning from Dynamic variables

Field access

Functions in Dynamic variables

Parameterized Dynam...