Tags: Webapper

Over the weekend I was writing a simple little app, and came across something that should have been trivial, but turned out to throw me for a loop momentarily. I needed to drive some data from XML instead of my tried-and-true ColdFusion components, and I realized I’d never done it before. So, here’s the example:

First off, you need to actually get the XML file using a HTTPService:

<mx:HTTPService id="sectionService" url="pet.xml" resultFormat="e4x" result="sectionResult(event)"/>

Looks simple enough, but to produce valid XML, I needed to have a root node around my other nodes:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<varieties>
  <variety name="Standard"/>
  <variety name="Angora"/>
  <variety name="Satin"/>
  <variety name="Rex"/>
  <variety name="Texel"/>
  <variety name="Satin Texel"/>
  <variety name="Satin Rex"/>
  <variety name="Satin Angora"/>
  <variety name="Fuzzy"/>
  <variety name="Fuzzy Angora"/>
  <variety name="Fuzzy Hairless"/>
  <variety name="Fuzzy Hairless Angora"/>
  <variety name="Hairless"/>
</varieties>

Now, when I put this directly into a XMLList object, I got a ComboBox with one option… my entire XML packet. It took a few tries to realize that I needed to make the DataProvider only the “variety” nodes, and that was easy to do:

private function varietyResult(e:ResultEvent):void {
  varietyXML = XMLList(e.result.variety);
}

So, for everyone who likes to see the whole picture, like me, here’s the entire MXML code:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml" width="100%" height="100%" initialize="init()">
  <mx:HTTPService id="varietyService" url="varieties.xml" resultFormat="e4x" result="varietyResult(event)"/>
  <mx:Script>
    <![CDATA[
      import mx.rpc.events.ResultEvent;
      
      [Bindable] private var varietyXML:XMLList;
      
      private function init():void {
        varietyService.send();
      }
      
      private function varietyResult(e:ResultEvent):void {
        varietyXML = XMLList(e.result.variety);
      }
    ]]>
  </mx:Script>
  <mx:ComboBox id="variety" dataProvider="{varietyXML}" labelField="@name"/>
</mx:Application>