Menu Bar with dataprovider in XML format

Question

Good day!
Been working with flex for quite a while now and I must say it has been quite enjoyable. Unfortunately, I've stumbled upon a bit of a problem here and was hoping if someone could help me out. See I have this mxml which contains a menu bar, some containing sub menus while others do not.
The data provider for that menu bar is retrieved from a action script file lets say
menubar dataprovider = "{actionscriptfile.menubar}"
the menubar variable inside the acrtionscript file is in XMLLIstCollection format
ex. menuBarCollection = new XMLListCollection(XMLList(
'<menuitem label="Go to">' +
'<menuitem label="Home Page" />'
'</menuitem>'..etc..
This seems to be working just fine. However now, I want to serparate this actionscript from the menu items. I would like to place them inside an xml file which will be
used to populate the menuBarCollection.
I've tried using var request = new URLRequest("MenuXML.xml");
       var loader = new URLLoader();
       loader.load(request); <--inside the actionscript.
However nothing is being displayed inside the menu bar.
The xml file contains.
MenuXML.xml file
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<menuitem label="Go to">
<menuitem label="Home Page" />
</menuitem> 
Any help on how this can be done will be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

I had the same problem.  I was debugging and saw that my data was there it was just a matter of HOW to get it out.  I am not sure if this is the correct way of doing it but after reading posts on how to use an XML file for the dataProvider for everything BUT a MenuBar this is what I came up with:
private function init():void
    var xml:XML;
    var urlRequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest("assets/menu.xml");
    var urlLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
    urlLoader.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.TEXT;
    urlLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, function (evt:Event):void
            xml = new XML(evt.target.data);
            menuBarCollection = new XMLListCollection(xml.children());
    urlLoader.load(urlRequest);
I put the event handler inline but it could be a separate function.  The part I was missing was ".children()".  I eventually found that in an ActionScript example of displaying data from an XML file in an AdvancedDataGrid.
Kevin