Flash Hacks

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Chapter 10, ActionScript

#85 Import ASC Files as XML

HACK

Import and Parse the ASC File

The functions handleIncoming( ) and readXMLstart( ) in the following list-

ing cause Flash to load the ASC file as an XML file and place the contents of

the file into a string,

my3dFile, if the load is successful.

We know that each line of the ASC file contains related data and ends with a

carriage return (“\n” or

Key.ENTER in Flash). To split the ASC file into sepa-

rate lines of data, we simply search through the file looking for each occur-

rence of “\n” (we don’t use String.split( ) because we want to loop through

the array anyway to look for the data of interest, as discussed later). The

readASC( ) function separates the ASC file into lines and stores them in an

array named

shape:

handleIncoming = function (success) {

if (success) {

readXMLstart( );

}

};

readXMLstart = function ( ) {

my3dFile = xObj.firstChild.nodeValue;

readASC( );

};

readASC = function ( ) {

var oIndex:Number = 0;

var rIndex:Number = 0;

var elem:String = "";

while (rIndex != -1) {

rIndex = my3dFile.indexOf("\n", oIndex);

elem = my3dFile.substring(oIndex, rIndex);

// Skip any lines that are padding (less than 30 characters)

if (elem.length > 30) {

shape[shape.length] = elem;

}

Figure 10-12. The torus shape in 3D Studio Max

Import ASC Files ...