Flash CS3 Documentation

ActionScript 2.0 Components Language Reference > Data binding classes > EndPoint.location

EndPoint.location

Availability

Flash Player 6 (6.0.79.0).

Edition

Flash MX Professional 2004.

Usage

endPointObj.location

Description

Property; specifies the location of a data field within the property of the component instance. There are four ways to specify a location: as a string that contains an XPath expression, as a string that contains an ActionScript path, as an array of strings, or as an object.

XPath expressions can only be used when the data is an XML object. (See Example 1 below.)

For XML and ActionScript objects, you can also specify a string that contains an ActionScript path. An ActionScript path contains the names of fields separated by dots (for example, "a.b.c").

You can also specify an array of strings as a location. Each string in the array "drills down" another level of nesting. You can use this technique with both XML and ActionScript data. (See Example 2 below.) When used with ActionScript data, an array of strings is equivalent to use of an ActionScript path; that is, the array ["a","b","c"] is equivalent to "a.b.c".

If you specify an object as the location, the object must specify two properties: path and indices. The path property is an array of strings, as discussed above, except that one or more of the specified strings may be the special token "[n]". For each occurrence of this token in path, there must be a corresponding index item in indices. As the path is evaluated, the indices are used to index into arrays. The index item can be any EndPoint object. This type of location can be applied to ActionScript data only--not XML. (See Example 3 below.)

Example

Example 1: This example uses an XPath expression to specify the location of a node named zip in an XML object:

var sourceEndPoint = new mx.databinding.EndPoint();
var sourcObj = new Object();
sourceObj.xml = new XML("<zip>94103</zip>");
sourceEndPoint.component = sourceObj;
sourceEndPoint.property = "xml";
sourceEndPoint.location = "/zip";

Example 2: This example uses an array of strings to "drill down" to a nested movie clip property:

var sourceEndPoint = new mx.data.binding.EndPoint();
// Assume movieClip1.ball.position exists.
sourceEndPoint.component = movieClip1;
sourceEndPoint.property = "ball";
// Access movieClip1.ball.position.x.
sourceEndPoint.location = ["position","x"];

Example 3: This example shows how to use an object to specify the location of a data field in a complex data structure:

var city = new Object();
city.theaters = [{theater: "t1", movies: [{name: "Good,Bad,Ugly"}, {name:"Matrix Reloaded"}]}, {theater: "t2", movies: [{name: "Gladiator"}, {name: "Catch me if you can"}]}];
var srcEndPoint = new EndPoint();
srcEndPoint.component = city;
srcEndPoint.property = "theaters";
srcEndPoint.location = {path: ["[n]","movies","[n]","name"], indices: [{constant:0},{constant:0}]};

Flash CS3