ActionScript for Flash MX: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition

XML.appendChild() Method

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currentNode.removeNode();

}

}

}

}

Traditionally, the technique shown in this example is very efficient. However, in Flash

Player 5, the Array.concat() method executes quite slowly. Hence, in Flash 5 it’s quicker to

strip whitespace using the technique shown in the following example. Study the comments

carefully:

// Strip Whitespace Using Function Recursion

// Strips whitespace nodes from an XML document

// by passing twice through each level in the tree.

function stripWhitespaceDoublePass (theNode) {

// Loop through all the children of theNode.

for (var i = 0; i < theNode.childNodes.length; i++) {

// If the current node is a text node...

if (theNode.childNodes[i].nodeType = = 3) {

// ...check for any useful characters in the node.

var j = 0;

var emptyNode = true;

for (j = 0;j < theNode.childNodes[i].nodeValue.length; j++) {

// A useful character is anything over 32 (space, tab,

// new line, etc. are all below 32).

if (theNode.childNodes[i].nodeValue.charCodeAt(j) > 32) {

emptyNode = false;

break;

}

}

// If no useful characters were found, delete the node.

if (emptyNode) {

theNode.childNodes[i].removeNode();

}

}

}

// Now that all the whitespace nodes have been removed from theNode,

// call stripWhitespaceDoublePass()