XML object

Availability

Flash Player 5 (became a native object in Flash Player 6, which improved performance significantly).

Description

Use the methods and properties of the XML object to load, parse, send, build, and manipulate XML document trees.

You must use the constructor new XML() to create an instance of the XML object before calling any of the methods of the XML object. See "Constructor for the XML object" later in this section.

Method summary for the XML object

Method Description
XML.addRequestHeader() Adds or changes HTTP headers for POST operations.
XML.appendChild() Appends a node to the end of the specified object's child list.
XML.cloneNode() Clones the specified node and, optionally, recursively clones all children.
XML.createElement() Creates a new XML element.
XML.createTextNode() Creates a new XML text node.
XML.getBytesLoaded() Returns the number of bytes loaded for the specified XML document.
XML.getBytesTotal() Returns the size of the XML document, in bytes.
XML.hasChildNodes() Returns true if the specified node has child nodes; otherwise, returns false.
XML.insertBefore() Inserts a node in front of an existing node in the specified node's child list.
XML.load() Loads a document (specified by the XML object) from a URL.
XML.parseXML() Parses an XML document into the specified XML object tree.
XML.removeNode() Removes the specified node from its parent.
XML.send() Sends the specified XML object to a URL.
XML.sendAndLoad() Sends the specified XML object to a URL and loads the server response into another XML object.
XML.toString() Converts the specified node and any children to XML text.

Property summary for the XML object

Property Description
XML.contentType Indicates the MIME type transmitted to the server.
XML.docTypeDecl Sets and returns information about an XML document's DOCTYPE declaration.
XML.firstChild References the first child in the list for the specified node.
XML.ignoreWhite When set to true, text nodes that contain only white space are discarded during the parsing process.
XML.lastChild References the last child in the list for the specified node.
XML.loaded Checks if the specified XML object has loaded.
XML.nextSibling References the next sibling in the parent node's child list.
XML.nodeName The tag name of an XML element.
XML.nodeType The type of the specified node (XML element or text node).
XML.nodeValue The text of the specified node if the node is a text node.
XML.parentNode References the parent node of the specified node.
XML.previousSibling References the previous sibling in the parent node's child list.
XML.status A numeric status code indicating the success or failure of an XML document parsing operation.
XML.xmlDecl Specifies information about a document's XML declaration.

Collections summary for the XML object

Method Description
XML.attributes Returns an associative array containing all of the attributes of the specified node.
XML.childNodes Returns an array containing references to the child nodes of the specified node.

Event handler summary for the XML object

Event handler Description
XML.onData A callback function that is invoked when XML text has been completely downloaded from the server, or when an error occurs downloading XML text from a server.
XML.onLoad() A callback function for load and sendAndLoad.

Constructor for the XML object

Availability

Flash Player 5.

Usage

new XML([source])

Parameters

source The XML text parsed to create the new XML object.

Returns

Nothing.

Description

Constructor; creates a new XML object. You must use the constructor method to create an instance of the XML object before calling any of the XML object methods.

Note: The createElement and createTextNode methods are the "constructor" methods for creating the elements and text nodes in an XML document tree.

Example

Usage 1: The following example creates an new, empty XML object.

my_xml = new XML();

Usage 2: The following example creates an XML object by parsing the XML text specified in the source parameter, and populates the newly created XML object with the resulting XML document tree.

anyOtherXML = new XML("<state>California<city>san francisco</city></state>");

See also

XML.createElement(), XML.createTextNode()