WebService, HttpService, namespace

Question

I've happily been using htttpService calls, connecting to my
own PHP scripts without many problems. But I now have to use
services provided by a third party. The services can be used with
either webService or httpService, but all return xml data with an
included namespace. (xmlns="
http://www.example.com/api").
This seems to make life difficult, and I suspect I'm missing some
magic ingredient. My biggest problem is populating a datagrid with
the returned data.
1. Problems using ArrayCollection
If I use the webService call, and *don't* use the e4x
resultFormat, I can populate the grid by setting the dataProvider
to service.operation.lastResult. This works OK.
If, instead, I set the dataProvider to an mx:ArrayCollection
object like below, it doesn't work. No data appears in the grid.
(This method is illustrated in a number of examples in the docs.)
<mx:ArrayCollection id="statesAC"
source="service.operation.lastResult" />
But if I add an mx:Binding element, and point this to the
ArrayCollection, it works.
<mx:Binding source="service.operation.lastResult"
destination="statesAC" />
<mx:ArrayCollection id="statesAC" />
I should be happy that this works, but I'd be more
comfortable knowing why the middle approach doesn't, especially as
the docs seem to push this as a preferred approach. Any thoughts?
2. Problems using XMLListCollection
This is more troubling, as I'd prefer to use an
XMLListCollection to populate the grid.
I've had no success using the webService approach. I can't
get any of the above techniques for ArrayCollection to work for an
XMLListCollection. No data appears in the grid.
I've had more success with httpService and handling and
converting the XML directly in the service's result event. But this
also is not straightforward:
-- I have to set a namespace, using either "default xml
namespace = ...." or "use namespace ...". Without doing this, I'm
unable to extract an XMLList from the returned XML. (The XMLList is
used to make the XMLListCollection for the DataGrid.)
-- It seems that the DataGrid's dataField properties are not
recognised when a namespace is being used, even when the
above-mentioned namespace settings are in place. A labelFunction
has to be used, but even that is not straightforward.
Assuming a property name of "Name", this won't work for a
column setting (no data appear in the column):
<mx:DataGridColumn dataField="Name" headerText="Name"/>
This will work:
public function gridFunction(item:Object,
column:DataGridColumn):String {
return item.Name;
<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="Name"
labelFunction="gridFunction"/>
But this won't (although it works with XML that has no
namespace set):
public function gridFunction(item:Object,
column:DataGridColumn):String {
var fieldName:String = column.dataField;
return item[fieldName];
<mx:DataGridColumn headerText="Name"
labelFunction="gridFunction"/>
The labelFunction approach, although it displays data, still
leaves isues with sorting. I'm sure this is not how things are
meant to be.
Any insights as to how to make this easier would be
appreciated, especially with regard to working with
XMLListCollections.

Answer 1

From the webservice example.........
http://www.cflex.net/showfiledetails.cfm?ChannelID=1&Object=File&objectID=582
Instead of using:
default xml namespace = "http://www.webservicex.net"; to
define the default namespace of the Webservice,
You can automatically find the namespace of the Webservice
and set it to your default namespace in your result handler. Then
you would be able to use multiple webservices in multiple result
handlers.
[Bindable]private var xmlResult:XML;
private var wsDefaultNS:Namespace;
private var wsDefaultNS:Namespace;
private function onResult(oEvent:ResultEvent):void
xmlResult = XML(oEvent.result);
wsDefaultNS = xmlResult.namespace();
default xml namespace = Namespace(wsDefaultNS);
I have only been able to get data from webservices into a
datagrid by the labelfunction. I don't know of another way.