You can do both. Bottom line, the DataGrid requires a list of items. This can be an XMLList or Array, ONLY if you are certain you will not need to update the data items individually. Best practice is to use an XMLListCollection, which is a collection of XML nodes, or an ArrayCollection of item value objects. Each item in the collection produces a row.
Given such a list of data items, each row of the DataGrid gets a reference to the data item producing it. You specify which property or attribute in the item goes in which column using the DataGridColumn object. If the value you want is in a top-level property of the item (an attribute or first level child node of an XML item, or a top-level property of the item object) you can specify the dataField. It the value you want is nested deeper in the item object, use labelFunction(). There are many examples available. Tracy ________________________________ From: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of kenny14390 Sent: Friday, January 11, 2008 7:00 PM To: flexcoders@yahoogroups.com Subject: [flexcoders] Using an XML file as a dataProvider and accessing its data I started with Flex a couple days ago and I'm just learning the basics. This shouldn't be too hard to answer, but getting me to understand it would be the hard part! If I have an XML file with parents, children, and siblings (see the example below), how can I link say a DataGrid to a child element, but access its children? Refer to the sample XML file below. Let's call it test.xml <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?> <Schedule> <Semester id='Spring08'> <Department id='ACCT' name='Accounting'> <Course id='211' name='Financial Accounting'> <Section id='DIS01' limit='150' enroll='71'> <Section id='ACT50' limit='25' enroll='8'/> <Section id='ACT51' limit='25' enroll='12'/> </Section> <Section id='DIS02' limit='41' enroll='23'> <Section id='ACT56' limit='41' enroll='23'/> </Section> </Course> <Course ....> <Section ...> .... </Section> </Course> ... </Department> ... </Semester> ... </Schedule> >From what I understand, one way to get this document into the DataGrid is to create an HTTPService that connects to the XML file and give it an id, we'll call it 'file'. So in the DataGrid we would say "dataProvider='file.Schedule.Semester.Department.Course.Section'"? If this is the case, how does the DataGrid know what attributes to pull out of the elements and how is this displayed? Let's say I want to do some OOP and make an object for every Semester, Department, Course, and Section. How would I read this data and create the objects? Fields of the objects would be equivalent to the attributes to the elements. Thank you all for the support
