Building charts from xml

Question

I'm trying to build a series of charts from xml (sample below). Examples might be a column chart of all scores, or a column chart of all 'fred' values. All the examples I've seen are ArrayCollections, or if they are XML, they are very simple xml. I've tried converting the xml to an ArrayCollection (didn't work) and I've tried using the xml as the datasource. I could loop through and build a simple xml for each chart but there must be an easier way. Any suggestions.
<results>
                <item name="group1" speed="100" score="23" time="123">
                    <detail>
                        <element name='fred'>2</element>
                        <element name='john'>3</element>
                    </detail>
                </item>
                <item name="group2" speed="10" score="3" time="1">
                     <detail>
                         <element name='fred'>12</element>
                         <element name='john'>31</element>
                     </detail>
                 </item>
                <item name="group3" speed="230" score="53" time="78">
                     <detail>
                         <element name='fred'>42</element>
                         <element name='john'>81</element>
                     </detail>
                 </item>
</results> 

Answer 1

Charting framework access the fields like this item[yField] so any of the y field values that you have given does not work i.e. item["item.detail[0]"] etc. do not work.
For this purpose we created a property called dataFunction on Series, CategoryAxis classes through which you can provide appropriate value for your fields.
From the livedocs - http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/langref/mx/charts/chartClasses/Series.html#dataFunction
You typically use the dataFunction property to access fields in a data provider that are not scalar values, but are instead nested in the data provider. For example, the following data requires a data function to access the fields for a chart's data provider:
      , open:25.19}
The following example returns a value from this data provider:
     public function myDataFunction(series:Series, item:Object, fieldName:String):Object {
          if(fieldName == 'yValue')
              return(item.close.High);
          else if(fieldName == "xValue")
              return(item.month);
          else
              return null;
Thanks
-Sunil