Comments on: E4X : Retrieving a sibling of a node http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2006/08/17/e4x-retrieving-a-sibling-of-a-node/ code = joy Fri, 02 Dec 2011 01:36:37 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.1.3 By: Drew http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2006/08/17/e4x-retrieving-a-sibling-of-a-node/comment-page-1/#comment-26812 Drew Tue, 28 Jun 2011 06:37:50 +0000 http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/?p=1046#comment-26812 Very useful, but how do you protect against cases where there is no sibling? I tried != undefined or .length()>0 but the script always errors, saying "invalid XML name". Very useful, but how do you protect against cases where there is no sibling? I tried != undefined or .length()>0 but the script always errors, saying “invalid XML name”.

]]> By: James O'Reilly http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/2006/08/17/e4x-retrieving-a-sibling-of-a-node/comment-page-1/#comment-7002 James O'Reilly Sun, 20 Aug 2006 04:57:19 +0000 http://www.mikechambers.com/blog/?p=1046#comment-7002 Maybe Apple was trying to implement a generic parser so that they can add key/value pairs to the XML file at a later date that were not yet known. I agree that their method does pose some parsing difficulties. A method I've used in the past when I had XML that was not yet known was to make the key and value attributes of the same node. This way I could keep a strict relationship between the two. A third attribute was for type casting. This is what my XML file might have looked like: [code] [/code]My generic parser would go through all of the default nodes and add each one as a key/value pair to a LoadVars variable using the type attribute to properly cast the value. I was using Flash 7 so LoadVars worked nicely as a Dictionary. Then, as I started to tweak the XML file with additional defaults, I never had to go back to change the parser. Maybe Apple was trying to implement a generic parser so that they can add key/value pairs to the XML file at a later date that were not yet known. I agree that their method does pose some parsing difficulties. A method I’ve used in the past when I had XML that was not yet known was to make the key and value attributes of the same node. This way I could keep a strict relationship between the two. A third attribute was for type casting. This is what my XML file might have looked like:
[code]

[/code]My generic parser would go through all of the default nodes and add each one as a key/value pair to a LoadVars variable using the type attribute to properly cast the value. I was using Flash 7 so LoadVars worked nicely as a Dictionary. Then, as I started to tweak the XML file with additional defaults, I never had to go back to change the parser.

]]>