Question

I am new to XML and AJAX and am only a newcomer to Javascript and jQuery. Among other job duties I design our website. A deadline is very near, and the only way I can think of to do this project well is with AJAX. I have a document full of XML objects such as this one repeating:

<item>
    <subject></subject>
    <date></date>
    <thumb></thumb>
</item>

I want to create an array of all elements and their child elements. I’ve been reading jQuery tutorials on AJAX for hours and don’t even know where to start because they all assume a certain level of javascript proficiency. If someone could show me the easiest way to loop through all elements and put their children into an array, I’d appreciate it tons.

Answer 1

Using jQuery, $.ajax() your XML file, and on success pass retrieved data with each, like:

 var tmpSubject, tmpDate, tmpThumb;
 $.ajax({
            url: '/your_file.xml',
            type: 'GET', 
            dataType: 'xml',
            success: function(returnedXMLResponse){
                $('item', returnedXMLResponse).each(function(){
                     tmpSubject = $('subject', this).text();
                     tmpDate = $('date', this).text();
                     tmpThumb = $('thumb', this).text();
                    //Here you can do anything you want with those temporary
                    //variables, e.g. put them in some place in your html document
                    //or store them in an associative array
                })
            }  
        });