AS3 XML Filtering for search

[FlashDevSD]

Hi all,
I am wondering if anyone has ever worked on a search feature using E4X in ActionScript. I am about to start working on one and don't necessarily want to start from scratch.

[FlashDevSD]

OK welll I had to start from scratch, wasn't as hard as I thought, but I do have one problem. My first XMLList, searchResults, builds fine, but a good deal of nodes do not have the the property linkName, so I wanted to filter the CDATA to catch everything.

If I preform a search for something that has the linkName property, works perfect. If preform a search on I keep getting ReferenceError: Error #1065: Variable content is not defined.

The XML can be viewed at http://www.vistage.com/studiovi/xml/cdw.xml

//xml processed higher up
//search term defined by textbox

function processSearchXML(xmlData:XML, searchTerm:String):XMLList
{
	
	var searchResults:XMLList = xmlData.menuItem.*.(hasOwnProperty('@linkName') && @linkName.toLowerCase() == searchTerm);
	trace(searchResults);
	var subResults:XMLList = xmlData.menuItem.*.(content.toLowerCase() == searchTerm);
	trace (subResults + "SFG");

																	   
	return searchResults;
}

[FlashDevSD]

OK so moving forward i found that I can not filter the text of a cretin node if it has child elements, so I am moving all the text into <desc> tags.

Here is my new search function everything tell i try to build my XMLList subResults

function processSearchXML(xmlData:XML, searchTerm:String):XMLList
{
	trace(xmlData.menuItem.content.desc);  //traces correctly
	var searchData:XMLList = xmlData.*;
	//trace(searchData);
	var searchResults:XMLList = searchData.*.(hasOwnProperty('@linkName') && @linkName.toLowerCase() == searchTerm); //traces correclty
	
  
	trace(searchData.content.desc);//traces correctly

	var subResults:XMLList = searchData.content.(desc.toLowerCase() == searchTerm);  // gives me an error ReferenceError: Error #1065: Variable desc is not defined.
	
		
	//searchResults += subResults;
	// added in error handling 
	trace (searchResults.length() + " records found");
	if (!searchResults.length())
	{
		error_txt.text = "No Matches Found";
		error_txt.setTextFormat(error_frmt);
		addChild(error_txt);
	}else{
		error_txt.text = "";
	}
																	   
	return searchResults;
}

[FlashDevSD]

It just hit me, why don't I just add a property searchableTerms to any branch I want search enabled. It is limited to exact matches, but if I fill in the searchableTerms good enough, this will do what I need it to do.

I hope this helps

Here is a sample of my xml

<menu>
	<menuItem >
	<![CDATA[Day 1]]>
		<content linkName="" url=""  linkType="multi" searchableTerms="i am from , day 1">
			<desc><![CDATA[I Am From]]></desc>
			<multiLink url="cdw/day1/iAmFrom.doc"/>
			<multiLink url="cdw/day1/iAmFrom.pdf"/>
		</content>
		
		<content linkName="" url=""  linkType="multi" searchableTerms="poetic influences , day 1">
			<desc><![CDATA[Poetic Influences]]></desc>
			<multiLink url="cdw/day1/influences.doc"/>
			<multiLink url="cdw/day1/influences.pdf"/>
		</content>
		
		<content linkName="" url="day1/Strengths.ppt"  linkType="dl" searchableTerms="strengths finder , day 1">
			<desc><![CDATA[Strengths Finder]]></desc>
		</content>
		
		<content linkName="" url=""  linkType="multi" searchableTerms="have do be , day 1">
			<desc><![CDATA[Have Do Be]]></desc>
			<multiLink url="cdw/day1/haveDoBe.doc"/>
			<multiLink url="cdw/day1/haveDoBe.pdf"/>
		</content>
	</menuItem>
</menu>

Here is the function I used to process the search

//xml loaded above
function processSearchXML(xmlData:XML, searchTerm:String):XMLList
{
	
	var searchData:XMLList = xmlData.*;
	
	//if the node has searchable terms, add it to the list
	var searchTerms:XMLList = searchData.*.(hasOwnProperty('@searchableTerms'));
	
	//A list for the results
	var searchResults:XMLList = new XMLList();	
	
	for each(var searchItem:XML in searchTerms)
	{
		//gets the attribute searchableTerms 
		var searchSplit:String = searchItem.@searchableTerms.toXMLString();
		
		//builds the array of " , " seperated values
		//so that I can have multiple search terms 
		var searchTerms_ary:Array = searchSplit.split(" , ");
		//A list for the results
		var searchResults_ary:Array = new Array();
		trace(searchTerms_ary.length +" searchable terms in node");
		
		//search the array 
		for each(var term:String in searchTerms_ary)
		{
			//if the record matches what I searched for, add it to the results array
			if (term == searchTerm)
			{
				trace(term + " has met the seach craiteria");
				searchResults_ary.push(term);
			}
			
		}
		trace(searchResults_ary.length +" results in node");
		trace();
		//if anything was added to the array 
		//add the branch to the xml list 
		if(searchResults_ary.length != 0)
		{
			searchResults += searchItem;
		}	
	}
	  
	return searchResults;
}

[wdaniel]

first of all i have a xml file with names and phone numbers. what im trying to do is set up an input text field to put in a name and when you hit submit i want the dynamic text field to show a phone number. im extremely lost and need help. im using flash cs3 as3. dose any have a tutorial on this.


please please help



w............