[flexcoders] Sorting an XMLList on an attribute

[gaurav1146]

Hi,
 I am trying to sort an XMLList based on one of the attributes in the
XML node. On trying this I get the following error:

TypeError: Error #1089: Assignment to lists with more than one item is
not supported.

Instead of XMLList if I use XMLListCollection it works fine. The thing
is that I have used XMLList at lot of other places in my code as well
so I cannot easily switch to XMListCollection. I would be prefer a way
if I could sort the XMLList somwehow.

Following is the sample code that I tried for the sorting difference
between XMLList amd XMLListCollection:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<mx:Application xmlns:mx="http://www.adobe.com/2006/mxml";
layout="absolute">
        <mx:Script>
                <![CDATA[
                        import mx.collections.XMLListCollection;
                        import mx.collections.SortField;
                        import mx.collections.Sort;
                private var books: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>;
        
        // This does not work.
        /*
        [Bindable]
        private var booksList:XMLList = books.children();
        */
        [Bindable]
        private var booksList:XMLListCollection = new
XMLListCollection(books.children());
        
        
        private function sortBooks():void
        {
                var s:Sort = new Sort();
            s.fields = [new  SortField("@name")];
                    booksList.sort = s;
            booksList.refresh();
                tree.dataProvider = booksList;
            }
        
        ]]>
        </mx:Script>
        <mx:VBox>
                <mx:Tree id="tree" dataProvider="{booksList}" 
labelField="@name"/>
                <mx:Button click="sortBooks()" label="Sort books"/>
        </mx:VBox>
</mx:Application>