Question

My question is, how can do I take this Multi Dim array collection and apply level 2 to a drop down list,

 var someArray:ArrayCollection = new ArrayCollection( [
        { label: "Level 1 p1", data: 
         { label: "Level 2", data: "some stuff" }
        },
        { label: "Level 1 p2", data: 
         { label: "Level 2", data: "some stuff" }
        }
    ] );

<s:DropDownList includeIn="items" id="classSelect" dataProvider="{someArray[0].data}" selectedIndex="0" labelField="label" x="405" y="150"/>

someArray[0].data – for example points it to the entry 1 and the contents of the data level which in turn is a arrayList again, is my understanding here of how the pointers are working incorrect?

Answer 1

I’m not sure what you mean by

Apply level 2 to a drop down list

If you want to display the level 2 text in the drop down you can do so with an itemRenderer or a labelFunction which drills down into the object to return the text. Conceptually something like this:

protected function getLevel2(item:Object):String{
  return item.data.label;
}

<s:DropDownList dataProvider="{someArray}" labelFunction="getLevel2" />

If you want the dataProvider to contain nothing but your nested objects, then you’ll have to loop over the someArray value and create a new collection containing only the level 2 objects. Conceptually like this:

var newDataProvider :ArrayCollection = new AryCollection();
for each (item in someArray){
 newDataProvider.addItem(item.data);
}

I’ll also add, as a point of clarification that your current setting of the dataProvider most likely provides a error because your ‘data’ is a generic object which does implement the IList interface.

<s:DropDownList dataProvider="{someArray[0].data}" />

If it did work, then you’d end up with a dataProvider that only has a single item in it.