[flexcoders] Dot notation to access objects inside a datagrid column

[Niko Schmuck]

Hi FlexCoders:

Coming from a Java background, I was surprised that the dot operator is
not working as I expected.

The array with the data structure and children is populated from the 
(Hibernate) data source at creationComplete time with:

  ds.fill(users, "all.users", []);

The array collection is declared via:

  <mx:ArrayCollection id="users" />

and then used inside the datagrid ...

  <mx:DataGrid id="dgrid" dataProvider="{users}" editable="false">
    <mx:columns>
        <mx:DataGridColumn headerText="User ID" dataField="id"/>
        <mx:DataGridColumn headerText="First Name" dataField="firstName"/>
<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="Last Name" dataField="lastName"/>
<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="Group" dataField="userGroup.name"/>
    </mx:columns>
  </mx:DataGrid>

Unfortunately the dot-access to the related user group name seems not to
work, there is just nothing being displayed. If dataField="userGroup" then
there is [object UserGroup] displayed inside the datagrid column.

So how do you retrieve the properties of the related user group object?

Thanks for your help,
Niko


PS: The classes for value objects look very straight-forward:

// User.as
package com.example.flex
    {

        [Managed]
        [RemoteClass(alias="com.example.flex.User")]

        public class User
        {

            public var id:Number;
            public var firstName:String = "";
            public var lastName:String = "";
            public var userGroup:UserGroup;

            public function User() {
            }

        }
    }


// UserGroup.as
package com.example.flex
    {

        [Managed]
        [RemoteClass(alias="com.example.flex.UserGroup")]

        public class UserGroup
        {

            public var id:Number;
            public var name:String = "";

            public function UserGroup() {
            }

        }
    }