XMLDefinition

Description

The XMLDefinition class contains static methods for working with XML-based definitions. XML-based definitions are XML structures which mimic object relationships in Flash.

There are 3 kinds of elements and 1 attribute for special uses, each of which defined in the com.senocular.xml.XMLDefinition namespace. They are:

• property (element)
• call (element)
• arguments (element)
• name (attribute)

The property element is used to access an existing property of an object. For example, you may want to reference the transform property of a MovieClip instance defined in XML rather than redefine it. In that case you would use the property element to access that property's existing value rather than provide a new value to be set for the MovieClip's transform property. This element uses one attribute, name, to determine the name of the property being accessed.

The call element is used to call methods within objects. Like the property element, it too uses the name attribute to identify the class member (in this case a method) to be accessed. This would be useful for calling drawing methods on a display object. Method arguments are handled through the arguments element.

The arguments element is used in combination with class definitions or method calls. For class definitions (elements representing class instances) the arguments element contains the arguments for that instance's constructor call. For method calls, the arguments element's children are used as arguments for that method. The definitions within an arguments block is scoped to the parent node of the arguments element so references to property in an arguments element will reference properties in the argument's parent object. One caveat concerning the arguments element is that you are limited to 10 or less arguments.

The name attribute is used to identify the property name of the current object as it exists within its parent. For example, every movie clip has a Transform instance stored within its transform property. The property name "transform" represents the name that the Transform object would use in XML to associate itself with the transform property of it's parent object. For XML nodes defined in the definition namespace, the name property doesn't also have to be within the same namespace; it can be without a namespace.

The following example creates a Sprite a line drawn in its graphics object and one Shape child object with the instance name "child":

var definition:XML = 
<display:Sprite x="50" y="100"
	xmlns:display="flash.display"
	xmlns:def="com.senocular.xml.XMLDefinition">
	<display:Shape />
	<def:property def:name="graphics">
		<def:call def:name="lineStyle">
			<def:arguments>
				<Number>1</Number>
				<uint>0xFF0000</uint>
			</def:arguments>
		</def:call>
		<def:call name="lineTo">
			<def:arguments>
				<Number>100</Number>
				<Number>100</Number>
			</def:arguments>
		</def:call>
	</def:property>
</display:Sprite>;
var sprite:Sprite = XMLDefinition.parse(definition);