Flex 2 Developer's Guide > Building User Interfaces for Flex Applications > Using Data Providers and Collections

Using Data Providers and Collections

Several Adobe Flex controls take input from a data provider such as an array or XML object. A Tree control, for example, reads data from a data provider to define the structure of the tree and any associated data assigned to each tree node. Flex controls use collection classes to represent data providers. A collection contains a group of objects, and provides a set of methods that let you access, sort, filter, and modify the items in the collection.

This topic describes data providers and the collection classes. It provides an introduction to using data providers in controls and discusses how to use the collection classes to access and manipulate data. Several topics, including Using Data-Driven Controls and Using Menu-Based Controls describe Flex controls that use data providers.

Contents

Flex 2.01