# \[F8\] Need help reading messages from an XML file and looping through them

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/f8-need-help-reading-messages-from-an-xml-file-and-looping-through-them/210824>\
**Category:** flash\
**Created:** [December 22, 2006, 2:54pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/f8-need-help-reading-messages-from-an-xml-file-and-looping-through-them/210824 "2006-12-22T14:54:20Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![jonnyporter](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/jonnyporter/32/3118_2.png) [@jonnyporter](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/jonnyporter)\
**Post date:** [December 22, 2006, 2:54pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/f8-need-help-reading-messages-from-an-xml-file-and-looping-through-them/210824/1 "2006-12-22T14:54:20Z")

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Hi all  
Grateful for any help with this problem which I have done before, but unfortunately no longer have the FLA file. The idea is to have a web page header that has some eye-catching animated messages that keep changing to the next one after a few seconds.

An XML file (header-messages.xml) contains one line per message, and also a hyperlink, see example below

[FONT=Courier New]\<?xml version=“1.0”?\>[/FONT]  
[FONT=Courier New]\<config\>[/FONT]  
[FONT=Courier New]\<message1 lineOne=“Special offer on red widgets” hyperLink="/special-offer.htm" /\>[/FONT]  
[FONT=Courier New]\<message1 lineOne=“Read our latest news” hyperLink="/latest-news.htm" /\>[/FONT]  
[FONT=Courier New]\<message3 lineOne=“Offer of the month is 2 for 1 on blue widgets” hyperLink="/monthly-promotion.htm" /\>[/FONT]  
[FONT=Courier New]\</config\>[/FONT]

What I would like to do is:

// Load the XML file, using a function to ensure it is loaded before reading the data from it  
// Variables are set by the in built XML object in Flash to be e.g. \_root.message1 etc. (Or something!?)  
// Initialise a counter at zero  
// The first frame of the timeline is used to increment the counter and set the txt field to be the first variable, e.g. message1, then message2 etc.  
// Loop through for as many times as there are messages in the xml file  
// If we only have 3 messages, there would be no message4, so if there is nothing in message4 we can set the counter back to 0

I’m just not sure how exactly to do this.

Any help on how to acheive this most appreciated.

This is kind of what I was thinking, although it clearly doesn’t loop through anything:

[FONT=Courier New]function loadXML(loaded) { [/FONT]  
[FONT=Courier New]if (loaded) { [/FONT]  
[FONT=Courier New]\_root.message1 = this.firstChild.childNodes[0].childNodes[0].firstChild.nodeValue; [/FONT]  
[FONT=Courier New]message\_txt.text = \_root.message1; [/FONT]  
[FONT=Courier New]} else { [/FONT]  
[FONT=Courier New]trace(“file not loaded!”); [/FONT]  
[FONT=Courier New]} [/FONT]  
[FONT=Courier New]} [/FONT]  
[FONT=Courier New]xmlData = new XML(); [/FONT]  
[FONT=Courier New]xmlData.ignoreWhite = true; [/FONT]  
[FONT=Courier New]xmlData.onLoad = loadXML; [/FONT]  
[FONT=Courier New]xmlData.load(“header-messages.xml”);[/FONT]