AS2 XML Parsing, Loops, Arrays & Objects

Question

I want to parse an XML file with AS2, but I'm not sure how to put the retrieved values into an array of objects with the number of keys matching found values. The code has if statements to filter out unwanted elements, but the number of array keys will always equal the length limit of the for loop.

How do I create an array of objects that only contains values that are not undefined?

//AS2

var xml:XML = new XML();
xml.ignoreWhite=true;

xml.onLoad = function(success)
{
    if (success) 
    {
        var myImage = xml.firstChild.childNodes;
        var img_arr = new Array();

        for (i=0; i<myImage.length; i++) 
        {
            img_arr[i] = new Object();

            var nodeName = xml.firstChild.childNodes[i].NodeName;


            //condition to filter out values
            if (nodeName == "value")
            {
                img_arr[i]["file"] = xml.firstChild.childNodes[i].firstChild.NodeValue;
                img_arr[i]["name"] = xml.firstChild.childNodes[i].childNodes[1].NodeValue;    
            }
        }
        //trace(img_arr.length)
    }
}
xml.load("test.xml");

Returns an Array like:

img_arr[file][0] = value0
img_arr[name][0] = name0
img_arr[file][1] = undefined
img_arr[name][1] = undefined
img_arr[file][2] = value2
img_arr[name][2] = name2

How do you get this array?

img_arr[file][0] = value0
img_arr[name][0] = name0
img_arr[file][1] = value2
img_arr[name][1] = name2

@Jens Struwe , Yup. Probably needs an array push of some sort. — rrrfusco

elFlashor elFlashor · Accepted Answer · 2012-10-10T15:39:39

You could try to look for empty values before pushing them into your array.

Something like :

if (xml.firstChild.childNodes[i].firstChild.NodeValue.length > 0) {
    // here put the value into your array
}

Using the length of the value to find if its null or not, looking at them as String, can be useful sometimes : if its 0, that means that no character have been found in the nodeValue, showing that either the node doesn't exists, or the node is empty.

Using your code, here's what I suggest (must propably adapted to what you're doing, have not been tested) :

for (i=0; i<myImage.length; i++) {
    var nodeName:String = xml.firstChild.childNodes[i].NodeName;
    var newNode:Object;

    //condition to filter out values
    if (nodeName == "value") {
        // means that both of the nodes exists and contain a valid value
        if (xml.firstChild.childNodes[i].firstChild.NodeValue.length > 0 && xml.firstChild.childNodes[i].childNodes[1].NodeValue.length > 0) {
           newNode = new Object();
           newNode["file"] = xml.firstChild.childNodes[i].firstChild.NodeValue;
           newNode["name"] = xml.firstChild.childNodes[i].childNodes[1].NodeValue;
       }
    }
    if (newNode != null && newNode != undefined) {
        img_arr.push(newNode);
    }
}

AS2 XML Parsing, Loops, Arrays & Objects

1 Answers