User Guide

XML type conversion 329

If you use the trace() method without specifying toString() or toXMLString(), the data

is converted using the

toString() method by default, as this code shows:

var myXML:XML =

<order>

<menuName>burger</menuName>

</item>

<order>;

trace(myXML.item[0].menuName);

// burger

When using the trace() method to debug code, you will often want to use the

toXMLString() method so that the trace() method outputs more complete data.

Converting strings to XML objects

You can use the new XML() constructor to create an XML object from a string, as follows:

var x:XML = new XML("<a>test</a>");

If you attempt to convert a string to XML from a string that represents invalid XML or XML

that is not well formed, a run-time error is thrown, as follows:

var x:XML = new XML("<a>test"); // throws an error

Converting attribute values, names, and text values

from strings

All XML attribute values, names, and text values are String data types, and you may need to

convert these to other data types. For example, the following code uses the

Number() function

to convert text values to numbers:

var myXML:XML =

<order>

<item>

</item>

<item>

</item>

</order>;

var total:XML = <total>0</total>;

myXML.appendChild(total);

for each (var item:XML in myXML.item)