flash.xml.XMLNode - Adobe® Flex® 4 Language Reference (Flex 4)

Package	flash.xml
Class	public class XMLNode
Inheritance	XMLNode Object
Subclasses	XMLDocument

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9

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

XML
flash.xml.XMLDocument

Public Properties

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	Property		Defined 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
		constructor : 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
		prototype : Object [static] A reference to the prototype object of a class or function object.	Object

Public Methods

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	Method		Defined By
		XMLNode(type:uint, value:String) Creates a new XMLNode object.	XMLNode
		appendChild(node:XMLNode):void Appends the specified node to the XML object's child list.	XMLNode
		cloneNode(deep:Boolean):XMLNode Constructs and returns a new XML node of the same type, name, value, and attributes as the specified XML object.	XMLNode
		getNamespaceForPrefix(prefix:String):String Returns the namespace URI that is associated with the specified prefix for the node.	XMLNode
		getPrefixForNamespace(ns:String):String Returns the prefix that is associated with the specified namespace URI for the node.	XMLNode
		hasChildNodes():Boolean Indicates whether the specified XMLNode object has child nodes.	XMLNode
		hasOwnProperty(name:String):Boolean Indicates whether an object has a specified property defined.	Object
		insertBefore(node:XMLNode, before:XMLNode):void Inserts a new child node into the XML object's child list, before the beforeNode node.	XMLNode
		isPrototypeOf(theClass:Object):Boolean Indicates whether an instance of the Object class is in the prototype chain of the object specified as the parameter.	Object
		propertyIsEnumerable(name:String):Boolean Indicates whether the specified property exists and is enumerable.	Object
		removeNode():void Removes the specified XML object from its parent.	XMLNode
		setPropertyIsEnumerable(name:String, isEnum:Boolean = true):void Sets the availability of a dynamic property for loop operations.	Object
		toLocaleString():String Returns the string representation of this object, formatted according to locale-specific conventions.	Object
		toString():String 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
		valueOf():Object 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

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

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

firstChild

property

public var firstChild:XMLNode

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9

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.

lastChild

property

public var lastChild:XMLNode

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9

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.

localName

property

localName:String [read-only]

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9

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

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

nextSibling

property

public var nextSibling:XMLNode

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9

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.

nodeName

property

public var nodeName:String

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9

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

XMLNode.nodeType

nodeType

property

public var nodeType:uint

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9

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 value	Defined constant
1	ELEMENT_NODE
3	TEXT_NODE
5	ENTITY_REFERENCE_NODE
7	PROCESSING_INSTRUCTION_NODE
9	DOCUMENT_NODE
11	DOCUMENT_FRAGMENT_NODE

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

nodeValue

property

public var nodeValue:String

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9

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

XMLNode.nodeType

parentNode

property

public var parentNode:XMLNode

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9

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.

prefix

property

prefix:String [read-only]

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9

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

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.

Constructor Detail

XMLNode

()

Constructor

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

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9

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.

Method Detail

appendChild

()

method

public function appendChild(node:XMLNode):void

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9

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

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

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.

getPrefixForNamespace

()

method

public function getPrefixForNamespace(ns:String):String

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9

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.

hasChildNodes

()

method

public function hasChildNodes():Boolean

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9

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

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

XMLNode.cloneNode()

removeNode

()

method

public function removeNode():void

Language Version:

ActionScript 3.0

Runtime Versions:

AIR 1.0 Flash Player 9

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

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.

Examples ( How to use this example )

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";
    }
}