ActionScript for Flash MX: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition

XML.childNodes Property

This is the Title of the Book, eMatter Edition

Copyright © 2007 O’Reilly & Associates, Inc. All rights reserved.

922

|

ActionScript Language Reference

If the XML element represented by theNode has no attributes, attributes is an empty object

with no properties, and the preceding example would indicate zero attributes.

See Also

XML.nodeType

XML.childNodes Property

an array of references to a node’s children

Flash 5

read-only

theNode.childNodes[n]

Description

The childNodes property is an array whose elements contain references to the immediate

descendants of

theNode, where theNode can be an XML or XMLnode instance. The

childNodes property is used to access nodes in an XML hierarchy. For example, if we create

an object hierarchy as follows:

myDoc = new XML('<STUDENT><NAME>Tim</NAME><MAJOR>BIOLOGY</MAJOR></STUDENT>');

we can then access the STUDENT node using:

myDoc.childNodes[0];

We can access the NAME and MAJOR nodes (which are descendants of STUDENT) using:

myDoc.childNodes[0].childNodes[0]; // NAME

myDoc.childNodes[0].childNodes[1]; // MAJOR

If the hierarchy below theNode changes, childNodes is automatically updated to reflect the

new structure. For example, if we delete the

MAJOR node, myDoc.childNodes[0].

childNodes[1]

will return undefined.

We often refer to nodes to manipulate information or rearrange a document’s structure.

For example, we can change a student’s name or add a new ...