Question

I have a piece of XML that goes out and grabs data. That data is being updated every so often. I want the user to be able to see the updated data by creating a way to reload it every x amount of time.

How do I use the timer to do this in Actionscript 3?

Answer 1

Sounds like you just need a basic timer set up (UNTESTED CODE):

var timerRefreshRate:Number = 30000; //Miliseconds between timer refreshes (30 seconds)
var fatherTime:Timer = new Timer(timerRefreshRate, 0);
fatherTime.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, refreshXML);
fatherTime.start();
function refreshXML(evt:TimerEvent = null):void {
   //put your code to load the xml here
}

If I inadvertently created any bugs in my code above, or if you want to understand the Timer class more, there’s also a good Timer tutorial here:
http://www.republicofcode.com/tutorials/flash/as3timer/