Shan’s Simple Examples: Using an XML datasource with mx:ComboBox
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:
Looks simple enough, but to produce valid XML, I needed to have a root node around my other nodes:
<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:
So, for everyone who likes to see the whole picture, like me, here’s the entire MXML code:
<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>
Hey, now you can promote your flash&flex posts on http://www.nerv.es/flashme
thanks!
Comment by saul — March 4, 2008 @ 12:00 am