AS3 and XML, HELP!

Question

Hi
I have no idea where to post this, so pls forgive me if im in the wrong place, but I have an Assessment due tomorrow, I'm only 4 weeks knew to AS3 and Flash, and confused as, so pls forgive me if i also look silly asking this question.
The issue is loading data from an XML file and having it present in a Flash website. Its a book review thing (i've altered the XML and AS3 for posting here so please bare that in mind), so the XML looks a little like this
<books>
    <book>
        <bookName>The Monsters</bookName>
        <genres>
            <genre>Thriller</genre>
            <genre>Crime</genre>
            <genre>Comedy</genre>
        </genres>
        <description>about the mummies.</description>
        <image>mummies.jpg</image>
        <reviews>
            <review>
                <date>16/07/2011</date>
                <name>unnamed</name>
                <info>
                    <rating>5</rating>
                    <why>blah blah</why>
                    <theGood>it was good...</theGood>
                    <the Bad>it was bad…</theBad>
                </info>
            </review>
        </reviews>
    </book>
<books>
but each Book has multiple reviews, i've just shown you one. Anyway, i need to present this information in 3 dynamic text fields when a book is selected in my ComboBox… after a lot of trouble i got the basics of it. So in the Genre box the genres will display, and in the Description box the description will display, and in the Review box i can get all the information, but only with all the tags. I need it to display without any tags, it would be wonderful if i could figure out how i could put date, name etc in front of that information as well, but I cant even begin to figure that one out.  For the life of me i cannot figure it out. below is the code I have so far:
//Load XML
var booksXML:XML = new XML();
var loader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
var request:URLRequest = new URLRequest("gigGuide.xml");
loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE,loaderOnComplete);
loader.load(request);
function loaderOnComplete(event:Event):void
   booksXML = new XML(event.target.data);
   var books:Array = new Array({label:"Select a Book"});
   for each (var book:XML in booksXML.band)
      books.push({label:book.bookName.toString(), data:book.description.toXMLString(),
                 infoLocal:book.genres.genre.toString(), infoDate:book.reviews.review.toString(),
                 infoImage:book.image});
   bandCB.dataProvider = new DataProvider(bands);
//ComboBox changeable
bookCB.addEventListener(Event.CHANGE, changeHandler2);
function changeHandler2(event:Event):void
   genre_txt.text = ComboBox(event.target).selectedItem.infoLocal;
   description_txt.text = ComboBox(event.target).selectedItem.data;
   reviews_txt.text = ComboBox(event.target).selectedItem.infoDate;
   empty_mc.tex = ComboBox(event.target).selectedItem.infoImage; //doesn't work
any help would be greatly appreciated, and the image doesn't work, i've already faced facts that im not going to get that one to work
Thank you in advance

Answer 1

From what I can see you have a few problems. In your loaderOnComplete you set the data provider with 'bands' but create a variable called 'books'.
Also, you want to be using the XMLList object to parse your data out. It's much simpler.
Have a look at the following:
var booksXML:XML;
function loaderOnComplete(e:Event):void
          booksXML = new XML(e.target.data);
          var books:XMLList = booksXML.book;
          trace(books[0].bookName);
          var bookReviews:XMLList = books[0].reviews.review;
          trace(bookReviews[0].name);
trace(bookReviews[0].date);
First we get all the book xml objects in an XML List - the trace traces book number 0's name - The Monsters.
Next, you can get all the reviews for a book in another XML List. Here we use the first book - book[0] and trace out the review's name and date.
You can iterate through an XMLList as it has a length() method - (not a length property)
Also, loading an image for a book would be easy - you just grab the image property of the current book and then use a Loader to load it.
trace(books[0].image);