FileMaker XML data problems

Question

I'm a bit of a newbie to getting data from XML into Flash,
but I'm seeing that this is going to be very important to future
projects that I work on. I am using FileMaker Pro (currently
version 7, but upgrading to 8) to create a database and exporting
XML file from there to read into Flash. I cannot seem to get the
data from the XML to show up in the Flash movie. I have been
following a tutorial on Lynda.com on Flash/FileMaker integration,
but the XML file doesn't look quite the same. Here is the XML data
I get when exporting from FileMaker:
<FMPXMLRESULT xmlns="
http://www.filemaker.com/fmpxmlresult">
<ERRORCODE>0</ERRORCODE>
<PRODUCT BUILD="05-06-2004" NAME="FileMaker Pro"
VERSION="7.0v2"/>
<DATABASE DATEFORMAT="M/d/yyyy" LAYOUT="RecRev"
NAME="Penn.State.On.The.Air.fp7" RECORDS="1" TIMEFORMAT="h:mm:ss
a"/>
<METADATA>
<FIELD EMPTYOK="YES" MAXREPEAT="1" NAME="PersonNam"
TYPE="TEXT"/>
<FIELD EMPTYOK="YES" MAXREPEAT="1" NAME="ProgramNam"
TYPE="TEXT"/>
<FIELD EMPTYOK="YES" MAXREPEAT="1" NAME="PersonBio"
TYPE="TEXT"/>
<FIELD EMPTYOK="YES" MAXREPEAT="1" NAME="ProgramDesc"
TYPE="TEXT"/>
<FIELD EMPTYOK="YES" MAXREPEAT="1" NAME="AudioName"
TYPE="TEXT"/>
<FIELD EMPTYOK="YES" MAXREPEAT="1" NAME="VideoNam"
TYPE="TEXT"/>
<FIELD EMPTYOK="YES" MAXREPEAT="1" NAME="Notes"
TYPE="TEXT"/>
<FIELD EMPTYOK="YES" MAXREPEAT="1" NAME="LastUpdate"
TYPE="DATE"/>
</METADATA>
<RESULTSET FOUND="1">
<ROW MODID="1" RECORDID="1">
<COL><DATA>Fran Fisher</DATA></COL>
<COL><DATA>TV Quarterbacks
(1965-1985)</DATA></COL>
<COL><DATA>One of the classic voices of Penn
State Athletics, Fran Fisher has called football and basketball on
the radio, as well as hosted several Penn State-related programs on
both television and radio. Beginning in 1966, Fisher hit the
airwaves providing color commentary on football radiocasts. A year
later, he joined the crew of WPSX-TV’s TV
Quarterbacks, to narrate game films and was made a co-host in
1968—a post he retained until the
show’s end in 1984. After three years of doing
football color work on the radio, he was shifted to play-by-play
duties. In this role he became the voice of Penn State Football and
provided a steady presence in the booth through the 1982 National
Championship season.
</DATA></COL>
<COL>
<DATA>The first television program to focus on Penn
State Football, TV Quarterbacks was the brainchild of WPSX-TV
general manager Marlowe Froke. Debuting in 1965, and initially
titled Wednesday Quarterbacks, the show was hosted by Harris Lipez
and Ken Holderman and included commentary from Coach Rip Engle.
</DATA>
</COL>
<COL>
<DATA>
</DATA>
</COL>
<COL>
<DATA>
</DATA>
</COL>
<COL>
<DATA>
</DATA>
</COL>
<COL>
<DATA>3/23/2007</DATA>
</COL>
</ROW>
</RESULTSET>
</FMPXMLRESULT>
I've tried many iterations of the combination of firstChild
and sibling, but I either get NULL, UNDEFINED, or a blank text area
where the PersonNam and PersonBio data should go. Here is the
Actionscript I'm using to load the data:
myXML = new XML();
xmlFile = "fmp.xml"
myXML.load(xmlFile);
function myOnLoad () {
PersonNam =
myXML.firstChild.firstChild.nextSibling.nextSibling.nextSibling.nextSibling.firstChild.fi rstChild.firstChild.nodeValue;
PersonBio =
myXML.firstChild.firstChild.nextSibling.nextSibling.nextSibling.nextSibling.firstChild.fi rstChild.nextSibling.firstChild.firstChild.nodeValue;
myXML.onLoad = myOnLoad;
I think I just don't understand XML well enough to get the
right data path. It confuses me that the data in the XML file looks
different than what I saw on the tutorial.

Answer 1

I looked over that PDF and started messing around with XPath.
Although it took a bit of experimentation, I was able to get the
info I wanted from my XML file with the following code:
import mx.xpath.XPathAPI;
var my_xml:XML = new XML();
my_xml.ignoreWhite = true;
my_xml.onLoad = function(success:Boolean) {
trace("onload...");
if (success) {
trace("success...");
path = "/FMPXMLRESULT/RESULTSET/ROW/COL/DATA";
// Make an array of all the data
arNodes = mx.xpath.XPathAPI.selectNodeList(this.firstChild,
path);
// Display first and second names on screen as a test
fname = arNodes[0].firstChild;
lname = arNodes[8].firstChild;
path2 = "/FMPXMLRESULT/RESULTSET/ROW";
// Make an array of just the people's names now
namNodes = mx.xpath.XPathAPI.selectNodeList(this.firstChild,
path2);
trace(namNodes[0].firstChild.firstChild.firstChild);
} else {
trace("error loading XML");
my_xml.load("fmp.xml");
I think I may go the XPath route for my kiosk project. This
looks quite a bit easier than dealing with the confusing and
endless firstChild iterations. Thanks again for suggesting this,
Raymond!