Question

I am still struggling loading in random data from an XML file using Actionscript 3.0 with no repeat of the previous venue.

Basically when I click a button on stage I want a random venue from my xml to display in dynamic text boxes on stage. My XML is located here http://pastebin.com/0qMMkfCs

It would be better to access the data directly without creating an array!

Surely someone knows how to do this correctly. Thankyou 🙂

Answer 1

OK, this edit will show how to ensure they all come up once randomly:

private var xmlLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
private var myLoadedXML:XML;
private var venues:XMLList;

public function getAnotherRandomVenue():XML{
    if(venues.length() > 0){
        var random:Number = Math.floor(Math.random() * (venues.length()-1));
        var thisRandomVenue:XML = new XML(venues[random]);
        delete venues[random];
        return thisRandomVenue;
    }
    return null;
}

public function loadItUP():void{
    xmlLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, onXMLLoaded);
    xmlLoader.load(new URLRequest("http://path.to.venuesXML.xml"));
}

private function onXMLLoaded(e:Event):void {
    myLoadedXML = new XML(e.target.data);
    venues = myLoadedXML.venue;
    // you are now ready at this point to start calling getAnotherRandomVenue()
}

Now calling getAnotherRandomVenue will return you a single Venue XML object. You can now either a) call this method repeatedly until it returns null (all items have been randomly returned) or b) look at venues.length() before you call it.

EDIT: merged the code to clearly when things get loaded and called.