Reading in a File (AS3) and repeatedly/dyamically accessing the data

Question

This may be a tired old question, but I have yet to find a good answer. Say for instance you have a class that reads in an xml file to get information such as a grocery store items, prices, etc. This class also allows you to retrieve the information about a grocery store item with a get() function.

var grocery:GroceryStore = new GroceryStore(); //create a class that 
                                               //reads in xml about
                                               //grocery items

grocery.get("lettuce");                        //get some data 

In this scenario, I am constantly running into issues because the get() function is being called before the event that loads in the xml file. It wouldn't make sense to place the get() in the onLoad event for the xml file because I want it to be re-usable and dynamic. Also, AS3 doesn't have a wait() function so I can't stall until the file is loaded? Does anyone have an idea on how to read in a file and then be able to safely access the data dynamically and repeatedly? Hopefully this example and my question is thorough enough, if not let me know.

Thanks

Answer 1

You can use events - listen for the complete event to be dispatched.

Add the following code to GroceryStore class

//constructor or a load method
var ldr:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
ldr.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, onLoad);
ldr.load(new URLRequest(xmlurl));
function onLoad(e:Event):void
{
  //process xml here
  dispatchEvent(e);
}

Now use it as:

var grocery:GroceryStore = new GroceryStore();
grocery.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, onGroceryLoad);
function onGroceryLoad(e:Event):void
{
  grocery.get("lettuce");
}