I need to also execute the Perl scripts with the files with user input from the flex interface...then yes I could just point flex to retrive those XML files..

I think you should setup a web server and get your Perl code working as a CGI or mod_perl app. Then you can make requets from Flex and it'll get the XML in return. I know nothing about Flex but I bet it has the ability to make HTTP requests.

There are some simple Perl-only HTTP servers on CPAN that might be faster to get going than Apache. If search.cpan.org wasn't broken I'd even find one for you! But Apache is a better choice if you have any interest in performance or stability.

-sam

That's the conclusion I've come to -- treating my Perl as a CGI script. In fact I found myself forced to do so because of Flex/Flash's rather insane security rules, which prevent you from loading an arbitrary URL unless the server is set to give you explicit permission to do so. Note that you'll want to go into the project properties and add "-use-network=false" as a compiler argument; otherwise your .swf will be unable to interact with local files. -Egg