Adobe® Flex® 4 Language Reference
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flash.xml 
XMLNode 
Packageflash.xml
Classpublic class XMLNode
InheritanceXMLNode Inheritance Object
Subclasses XMLDocument

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

The XMLNode class represents the legacy XML object that was present in ActionScript 2.0 and that was renamed in ActionScript 3.0. In ActionScript 3.0, consider using the new top-level XML class and related classes instead, which support E4X (ECMAScript for XML). The XMLNode class is present for backward compatibility.

View the examples

See also



Public Properties
 PropertyDefined By
  attributes : Object
An object containing all of the attributes of the specified XMLNode instance.
XMLNode
  childNodes : Array
[read-only] An array of the specified XMLNode object's children.
XMLNode
 Inheritedconstructor : Object
A reference to the class object or constructor function for a given object instance.
Object
  firstChild : XMLNode
Evaluates the specified XMLDocument object and references the first child in the parent node's child list.
XMLNode
  lastChild : XMLNode
An XMLNode value that references the last child in the node's child list.
XMLNode
  localName : String
[read-only] The local name portion of the XML node's name.
XMLNode
  namespaceURI : String
[read-only] If the XML node has a prefix, namespaceURI is the value of the xmlns declaration for that prefix (the URI), which is typically called the namespace URI.
XMLNode
  nextSibling : XMLNode
An XMLNode value that references the next sibling in the parent node's child list.
XMLNode
  nodeName : String
A string representing the node name of the XMLNode object.
XMLNode
  nodeType : uint
A nodeType constant value, either XMLNodeType.ELEMENT_NODE for an XML element or XMLNodeType.TEXT_NODE for a text node.
XMLNode
  nodeValue : String
The node value of the XMLDocument object.
XMLNode
  parentNode : XMLNode
An XMLNode value that references the parent node of the specified XML object, or returns null if the node has no parent.
XMLNode
  prefix : String
[read-only] The prefix portion of the XML node name.
XMLNode
  previousSibling : XMLNode
An XMLNode value that references the previous sibling in the parent node's child list.
XMLNode
 Inheritedprototype : Object
[static] A reference to the prototype object of a class or function object.
Object
Public Methods
 MethodDefined By
  
XMLNode(type:uint, value:String)
Creates a new XMLNode object.
XMLNode
  
Appends the specified node to the XML object's child list.
XMLNode
  
Constructs and returns a new XML node of the same type, name, value, and attributes as the specified XML object.
XMLNode
  
Returns the namespace URI that is associated with the specified prefix for the node.
XMLNode
  
Returns the prefix that is associated with the specified namespace URI for the node.
XMLNode
  
Indicates whether the specified XMLNode object has child nodes.
XMLNode
 Inherited
Indicates whether an object has a specified property defined.
Object
  
Inserts a new child node into the XML object's child list, before the beforeNode node.
XMLNode
 Inherited
Indicates whether an instance of the Object class is in the prototype chain of the object specified as the parameter.
Object
 Inherited
Indicates whether the specified property exists and is enumerable.
Object
  
Removes the specified XML object from its parent.
XMLNode
 Inherited
Sets the availability of a dynamic property for loop operations.
Object
 Inherited
Returns the string representation of this object, formatted according to locale-specific conventions.
Object
  
Evaluates the specified XMLNode object, constructs a textual representation of the XML structure, including the node, children, and attributes, and returns the result as a string.
XMLNode
 Inherited
Returns the primitive value of the specified object.
Object
Property Detail

attributes

property
attributes:Object

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

An object containing all of the attributes of the specified XMLNode instance. The XMLNode.attributes object contains one variable for each attribute of the XMLNode instance. Because these variables are defined as part of the object, they are generally referred to as properties of the object. The value of each attribute is stored in the corresponding property as a string. For example, if you have an attribute named color, you would retrieve that attribute's value by specifying color as the property name, as the following code shows:

	 var myColor:String = doc.firstChild.attributes.color
	 



Implementation
    public function get attributes():Object
    public function set attributes(value:Object):void

childNodes

property 
childNodes:Array  [read-only]

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

An array of the specified XMLNode object's children. Each element in the array is a reference to an XMLNode object that represents a child node. This is a read-only property and cannot be used to manipulate child nodes. Use the appendChild(), insertBefore(), and removeNode() methods to manipulate child nodes.

This property is undefined for text nodes (nodeType == 3).



Implementation
    public function get childNodes():Array

See also

firstChild

property 
public var firstChild:XMLNode

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Evaluates the specified XMLDocument object and references the first child in the parent node's child list. This property is null if the node does not have children. This property is undefined if the node is a text node. This is a read-only property and cannot be used to manipulate child nodes; use the appendChild(), insertBefore(), and removeNode() methods to manipulate child nodes.

See also

lastChild

property 
public var lastChild:XMLNode

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

An XMLNode value that references the last child in the node's child list. The XMLNode.lastChild property is null if the node does not have children. This property cannot be used to manipulate child nodes; use the appendChild(), insertBefore(), and removeNode() methods to manipulate child nodes.

See also

localName

property 
localName:String  [read-only]

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

The local name portion of the XML node's name. This is the element name without the namespace prefix. For example, the node <contact:mailbox/>bob@example.com</contact:mailbox> has the local name "mailbox", and the prefix "contact", which comprise the full element name "contact.mailbox".

You can access the namespace prefix through the prefix property of the XML node object. The nodeName property returns the full name (including the prefix and the local name).



Implementation
    public function get localName():String

namespaceURI

property 
namespaceURI:String  [read-only]

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

If the XML node has a prefix, namespaceURI is the value of the xmlns declaration for that prefix (the URI), which is typically called the namespace URI. The xmlns declaration is in the current node or in a node higher in the XML hierarchy.

If the XML node does not have a prefix, the value of the namespaceURI property depends on whether there is a default namespace defined (as in xmlns="http://www.example.com/"). If there is a default namespace, the value of the namespaceURI property is the value of the default namespace. If there is no default namespace, the namespaceURI property for that node is an empty string ("").

You can use the getNamespaceForPrefix() method to identify the namespace associated with a specific prefix. The namespaceURI property returns the prefix associated with the node name.



Implementation
    public function get namespaceURI():String

See also

nextSibling

property 
public var nextSibling:XMLNode

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

An XMLNode value that references the next sibling in the parent node's child list. This property is null if the node does not have a next sibling node. This property cannot be used to manipulate child nodes; use the appendChild(), insertBefore(), and removeNode() methods to manipulate child nodes.

See also

nodeName

property 
public var nodeName:String

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

A string representing the node name of the XMLNode object. If the XMLNode object is an XML element (nodeType == 1), nodeName is the name of the tag that represents the node in the XML file. For example, TITLE is the nodeName of an HTML TITLE tag. If the XMLNode object is a text node (nodeType == 3), nodeName is null.

See also

nodeType

property 
public var nodeType:uint

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

A nodeType constant value, either XMLNodeType.ELEMENT_NODE for an XML element or XMLNodeType.TEXT_NODE for a text node.

The nodeType is a numeric value from the NodeType enumeration in the W3C DOM Level 1 recommendation: http://www.w3.org/TR/1998/REC-DOM-Level-1-19981001/level-one-core.html. The following table lists the values:

Integer valueDefined constant
1ELEMENT_NODE
3TEXT_NODE
5ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE
7PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE
9DOCUMENT_NODE
11DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE

In Flash Player, the built-in XMLNode class only supports XMLNodeType.ELEMENT_NODE and XMLNodeType.TEXT_NODE.

See also

nodeValue

property 
public var nodeValue:String

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

The node value of the XMLDocument object. If the XMLDocument object is a text node, the nodeType is 3, and the nodeValue is the text of the node. If the XMLDocument object is an XML element (nodeType is 1), nodeValue is null and read-only.

See also

parentNode

property 
public var parentNode:XMLNode

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

An XMLNode value that references the parent node of the specified XML object, or returns null if the node has no parent. This is a read-only property and cannot be used to manipulate child nodes; use the appendChild(), insertBefore(), and removeNode() methods to manipulate child nodes.

See also

prefix

property 
prefix:String  [read-only]

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

The prefix portion of the XML node name. For example, the node <contact:mailbox/>bob@example.com</contact:mailbox> prefix "contact" and the local name "mailbox", which comprise the full element name "contact.mailbox".

The nodeName property of an XML node object returns the full name (including the prefix and the local name). You can access the local name portion of the element's name via the localName property.



Implementation
    public function get prefix():String

previousSibling

property 
public var previousSibling:XMLNode

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

An XMLNode value that references the previous sibling in the parent node's child list. The property has a value of null if the node does not have a previous sibling node. This property cannot be used to manipulate child nodes; use the appendChild(), insertBefore(), and removeNode() methods to manipulate child nodes.

See also

Constructor Detail

XMLNode

()Constructor
public function XMLNode(type:uint, value:String)

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Creates a new XMLNode object. You must use the constructor to create an XMLNode object before you call any of the methods of the XMLNode class.

Note: Use the createElement() and createTextNode() methods to add elements and text nodes to an XML document tree.

Parameters
type:uint — The node type: either 1 for an XML element or 3 for a text node.
 
value:String — The XML text parsed to create the new XMLNode object.

See also

Method Detail

appendChild

()method
public function appendChild(node:XMLNode):void

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Appends the specified node to the XML object's child list. This method operates directly on the node referenced by the childNode parameter; it does not append a copy of the node. If the node to be appended already exists in another tree structure, appending the node to the new location will remove it from its current location. If the childNode parameter refers to a node that already exists in another XML tree structure, the appended child node is placed in the new tree structure after it is removed from its existing parent node.

Parameters

node:XMLNode — An XMLNode that represents the node to be moved from its current location to the child list of the my_xml object.

cloneNode

()method 
public function cloneNode(deep:Boolean):XMLNode

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Constructs and returns a new XML node of the same type, name, value, and attributes as the specified XML object. If deep is set to true, all child nodes are recursively cloned, resulting in an exact copy of the original object's document tree.

The clone of the node that is returned is no longer associated with the tree of the cloned item. Consequently, nextSibling, parentNode, and previousSibling all have a value of null. If the deep parameter is set to false, or the my_xml node has no child nodes, firstChild and lastChild are also null.

Parameters

deep:Boolean — A Boolean value; if set to true, the children of the specified XML object will be recursively cloned.

Returns
XMLNode — An XMLNode Object.

getNamespaceForPrefix

()method 
public function getNamespaceForPrefix(prefix:String):String

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Returns the namespace URI that is associated with the specified prefix for the node. To determine the URI, getPrefixForNamespace() searches up the XML hierarchy from the node, as necessary, and returns the namespace URI of the first xmlns declaration for the given prefix.

If no namespace is defined for the specified prefix, the method returns null.

If you specify an empty string ("") as the prefix and there is a default namespace defined for the node (as in xmlns="http://www.example.com/"), the method returns that default namespace URI.

Parameters

prefix:String — The prefix for which the method returns the associated namespace.

Returns
String — The namespace that is associated with the specified prefix.

See also

getPrefixForNamespace

()method 
public function getPrefixForNamespace(ns:String):String

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Returns the prefix that is associated with the specified namespace URI for the node. To determine the prefix, getPrefixForNamespace() searches up the XML hierarchy from the node, as necessary, and returns the prefix of the first xmlns declaration with a namespace URI that matches ns.

If there is no xmlns assignment for the given URI, the method returns null. If there is an xmlns assignment for the given URI but no prefix is associated with the assignment, the method returns an empty string ("").

Parameters

ns:String — The namespace URI for which the method returns the associated prefix.

Returns
String — The prefix associated with the specified namespace.

See also

hasChildNodes

()method 
public function hasChildNodes():Boolean

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Indicates whether the specified XMLNode object has child nodes. This property is true if the specified XMLNode object has child nodes; otherwise, it is false.

Returns
Boolean — Returns true if the specified XMLNode object has child nodes; otherwise, false.

insertBefore

()method 
public function insertBefore(node:XMLNode, before:XMLNode):void

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Inserts a new child node into the XML object's child list, before the beforeNode node. If the beforeNode parameter is undefined or null, the node is added using the appendChild() method. If beforeNode is not a child of my_xml, the insertion fails.

Parameters

node:XMLNode — The XMLNode object to be inserted.
 
before:XMLNode — The XMLNode object before the insertion point for the childNode.

See also

removeNode

()method 
public function removeNode():void

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Removes the specified XML object from its parent. Also deletes all descendants of the node.

toString

()method 
public function toString():String

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Runtime Versions: AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9, Flash Lite 4

Evaluates the specified XMLNode object, constructs a textual representation of the XML structure, including the node, children, and attributes, and returns the result as a string.

For top-level XMLDocument objects (those created with the constructor), the XMLDocument.toString() method outputs the document's XML declaration (stored in the XMLDocument.xmlDecl property), followed by the document's DOCTYPE declaration (stored in the XMLDocument.docTypeDecl property), followed by the text representation of all XML nodes in the object. The XML declaration is not output if the XMLDocument.xmlDecl property is null. The DOCTYPE declaration is not output if the XMLDocument.docTypeDecl property is null.

Returns
String — The string representing the XMLNode object.

See also

XMLDocumentExample.as

The following example uses the XMLDocument and XMLNode classes to parse and format an XML document. Rather than loading an external XML file, the example uses the top-level XML class to create an XML document, then parses it.
package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.xml.XMLDocument;
    import flash.xml.XMLNode;
    import flash.xml.XMLNodeType;

    public class XMLDocumentExample extends Sprite {
        public function XMLDocumentExample() {
            var result:XMLDocument = new XMLDocument();
            result.ignoreWhite = true;
            result.parseXML(getXMLString());

            var books:Array = parseBooks(result.firstChild);
            trace("books: \n" + books);
        }

        private function parseBooks(node:XMLNode):Array {
            var books:Array = new Array();

            var kids:Array = node.childNodes;
            for each(var item:XMLNode in kids) {
                parseBook(item, books);
            }

            return books;
        }

        private function parseBook(node:XMLNode, books:Array):void {
            var item:Book = new Book();
            item.setPublisher(node.attributes.publisher);
            item.setName(node.attributes.name);
            books.push(item);
        }

        private function getXMLString():String {
            var list:XML = <books>
                                <book publisher="Addison-Wesley" name="Design Patterns" />
                                <book publisher="Addison-Wesley" name="The Pragmatic Programmer" />
                                <book publisher="Addison-Wesley" name="Test Driven Development" />
                                <book publisher="Addison-Wesley" name="Refactoring to Patterns" />
                                <book publisher="O'Reilly Media" name="The Cathedral & the Bazaar" />
                                <book publisher="O'Reilly Media" name="Unit Test Frameworks" />
                            </books>;
            return list.toXMLString();
        }
    }

}
class Book {
    private var publisher:String;
    private var name:String;

    public function setPublisher(publisher:String):void {
        this.publisher = publisher;
    }

    public function setName(name:String):void {
        this.name = name;
    }

    public function toString():String {
        return "[Book name: " + name + " publisher: " + publisher + "]\n";
    }
}