Example : Iterating through Attributes using E4X in ActionScript 3

Werner Sharp (one of the Flash Player engineers responsible for E4X in the player) posted an example on the FlexCoders list showing how to dynamically iterate over XML attributes and their values using E4X in ActionScript 3. I wanted to post it here as it is useful to know, and to store for future reference.

This code below actually shows two ways to do this. The first using a for each in loop, and the second using a for loop.

package
{
	import flash.display.Sprite;

	public class XMLAttributeExample extends Sprite
	{
		public function XMLAttributeExample()
		{
			var xml1:XML = <Node1 a='b' c='d' e='f' g='h'/>


			trace("---Example 1 : for each in---");
			for each(var a:XML in xml1.@*)
			{
				trace (a.name() + " : " + a.toXMLString());
			}

			trace("---Example 2 : for---");
			var atts:XMLList = xml1.attributes();
			for (var i:int = 0; i < atts.length(); i++)
			{
				trace (String(atts[i].name()) + " : " + atts[i].toXMLString());
			}
		}
	}
}

I have uploaded this example into our subversion repository. You can view it here.

You can compile this using the mxmlc or Flex Builder 2 betas which you can grab from labs.