Extracting info from SWF Files

UnderMine has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I currently have a system that allows the upload of Flash files to be embedded in dynamic webpages.

Now comes the hard part. I need to extract enough info out of the files to be able to generate the appropriate embedded object in the HTML.

<OBJECT classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase=
+"http://active.macromedia.com/flash2/cabs/swflash.cab#version=4,0,0,0
+" ID=test WIDTH=270 HEIGHT=250>
         <PARAM NAME=movie VALUE="/flash/welcome3.swf">
        <PARAM NAME=menu VALUE=false>
        <PARAM NAME=quality VALUE=high>
        <PARAM NAME=salign VALUE=RB>
        <PARAM NAME=bgcolor VALUE=#cccccc>
        <EMBED src="/flash/welcome3.swf" menu=false quality=high salig
+n=RB align="center" bgcolor=#cccccc  WIDTH=270 HEIGHT=250 TYPE="appli
+cation/x-shockwave-flash" PLUGINSPAGE="http://www.macromedia.com/shoc
+kwave/download/index.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash"></EMBED>
    </OBJECT>
[download]

The important parts are the width and height but I would also like to be able to verify the version used (to stop uploading of Flash 6 files) and whether the file is actually a valid Flash file.

I have looked at CPAN with no luck. Perl::Flash and Flash::SWF handle flash but these seem to be based on version 3 or 4 and have not been updated for ages.

Does anyone know how to do this?

Thanks in advance
UnderMine

Comment on Extracting info from SWF Files Download Code

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Re: Extracting info from SWF Files by tachyon (Chancellor) on Nov 23, 2002 at 16:19 UTC
Perhaps you could find out about the SWF format http://www.openswf.org/spec/SWFfileformat.html You might then consider updating the existing modules to do what you want. The author of Flash::SWF asks for help to do just this. As it happens Flash::SWF is a nice bit of OO code that does not require much modification to do what you want.... cheers tachyon s&&rsenoyhcatreve&&&s&n.+t&"$'$`$\"$\&"&ee&&y&srve&&d&&print	[reply]
Re: Re: Extracting info from SWF Files by UnderMine (Friar) on Nov 24, 2002 at 17:02 UTC
Thanks for that. The open SWF format appear to go upto version 3. However the full spec of SWF 6 is available from MacroMedia and Open SWF spec goes upto version 5 now. This would at least give an idea about the magnitude of work required. Perl::Flash appears to go upto version 4 but is only just ahead of Flash::SWF but I think that this can easily be caught up. The only problem I can see with updating the modules is that Flash 4 and above contain ActionScript a simple programming language in its own right. This is going to be hard work... but it could be a lot of fun. Anyone be interested in serving personalised Flash on demand? Hope this is worth it... UnderMine Asside: ajt mentioned this which shows how to cut down the size of the Flash embedded object tags.	[reply]
Re: Re: Extracting info from SWF Files by UnderMine (Friar) on Nov 27, 2002 at 23:47 UTC
After digging quite a way I think I have found what I am looking for. Barely documented feature of ming is its perl support. `Project: Ming - an SWF output library: Summary output library Ming is an SWF ("Flash") file format output library. It is written in C, with wrappers for C++, Python, and PHP, plus rudimentary support for Ruby and Perl.` [download] Also on CPAN there is SWF::File which is far more upto date than Flash::SWF or Flash::perl and already has Flash 6 support. But this seams overly complex for the job at hand. What I can see needing to be done in the not so far future is a merging of these to areas and approaches. Just for general info UnderMine	[reply] [d/l]