ActionScript (AS3) object /JSON text input - arrays

Question

I have a problem with ActionScript (AS3) / JSON. There is probably a really simple answer to this, so I apologize if this seems like a really noob question.
What I am trying to do is take multiple text strings, place them into an object and then have that object sent as a JSON string to a server.
Every thing else in my code works fine, accept whenever I input a piece of text into my text input box and send the object, the array produces null entries like so:
{"email":null,"last_Name":null,"first_Name":null,"date_of_birth":null,"telephone":null}
However if I replace customer.first_name = inPutfname with: customer.first_name = " John";
Then the array traces back as the following which is what I want:
{"email":null,"last_Name":null,"first_Name":John,"date_of_birth":null,"telephone":null}
So how do I take the multiple input text strings and place them into the object so that the array reads back as it does in the above example, or ideally like this example:
{"email":randomemail#email.com"last_Name":smith,"first_Name":john,"date_of_birth":27/07/1989,"telephone":012343456788}
Here is the code I have so far:
var inPutFirstname: String;
var inPutLastname: String;
var inPutEmail: String;
var inPutTelephone: String;
var inPutDob: String;
// changes customer data into an object
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
var customer:Object = new Object;
customer.first_Name =inPutFirstname;
customer.last_Name = inPutLastname; PROBLEM AREA?
customer.email = inPutEmail;
customer.date_of_birth = inPutDob;
customer.telephone = inPutTelephone;
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\
//changes customer object into json string
var myJson: String = JSON.stringify(customer);
var myVariableUrl: URLVariables = new URLVariables();
myVariableUrl.data = JSON.stringify(myVariableUrl);
var myRequestUrl: URLRequest = new URLRequest();
var authHeaderUrl: URLRequestHeader = new URLRequestHeader("xxxxxx", "xxxxxxx");
myRequestUrl.method = URLRequestMethod.POST;
myRequestUrl.data = myJson;
myRequestUrl.url = "website url"
var uload: URLLoader = new URLLoader();
uload.load(myRequestUrl);
uload.load(myRequestUrl);
mySendbutton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, thefunction1);
// captures text from the input and places them into the customer object
function captureText1(): void {
inPutFirstname = myFirstName.text;
inPutLastname = myLastName.text;
inPutEmail = myEmail.text;
inPutDob = myDob1.text + myDob2.text + myDob3.text;
inPutTelephone = myTele.text;
}
function thefunction1(event: MouseEvent): void {
captureText1();
trace(inPutfname);
trace(myJson);
}
Any Help would be Amazing.
Thanks guys

Answer 1

Your problem is that the code for creating the JSON object doesn't seem to be contained in a function, which means it will be executed immediately (considering this is probably code attached to a frame).
What you need to do is to is to wrap the code relating to creating the JSON object into a function, something like this:
(Please note that there are a lot of ways this code can be structured better, however this should illustrate some core concepts.)
var inPutFirstname: String;
var inPutLastname: String;
var inPutEmail: String;
var inPutTelephone: String;
var inPutDob: String;
function generateJSON():String {
var customer:Object = new Object();
customer.first_Name = inPutFirstname;
customer.last_Name = inPutLastname;
customer.email = inPutEmail;
customer.date_of_birth = inPutDob;
customer.telephone = inPutTelephone;
return JSON.stringify(customer);
}
function sendJSON(data)
var myVariableUrl: URLVariables = new URLVariables();
myVariableUrl.data = JSON.stringify(myVariableUrl);
var myRequestUrl: URLRequest = new URLRequest();
var authHeaderUrl: URLRequestHeader = new URLRequestHeader("xxxxxx", "xxxxxxx");
myRequestUrl.method = URLRequestMethod.POST;
myRequestUrl.data = data;
myRequestUrl.url = "website url"
var uload: URLLoader = new URLLoader();
uload.load(myRequestUrl);
}
mySendbutton.addEventListener(MouseEvent.MOUSE_DOWN, thefunction1);
// captures text from the input and places them into the customer object
function captureText1(): void {
inPutFirstname = myFirstName.text;
inPutLastname = myLastName.text;
inPutEmail = myEmail.text;
inPutDob = myDob1.text + myDob2.text + myDob3.text;
inPutTelephone = myTele.text;
}
function thefunction1(event: MouseEvent): void {
// First populate the string variables with user input
captureText1();
// Then generate the JSON string
var jsonData:String = generateJSON();
// Lastly, send the JSON string
sendJSON(jsonData);
trace(inPutfname);
trace(jsonData);
}

Answer 2

1st of all, can you add in function captureText1() traces for:
trace(myFirstName.text);
trace(myLastName.text);
trace(myEmail.text);
etc...
just to be sure that you have proper value in there.
And if you are, instead of using extra variables for that you can do (right after traces):
var customer:Object = new Object;
customer.first_Name = myFirstName.text;
customer.last_Name = myLastName.text;
customer.email = myEmail.text;
customer.date_of_birth = "" + myDob1.text + myDob2.text + myDob3.text;
customer.telephone = myTele.text;
var myJson: String = JSON.stringify(customer);
trace(myJson);