# Nested arraycollections and nested repeaters

**URL:** https://forum.kirupa.com/t/nested-arraycollections-and-nested-repeaters/265187
**Category:** Uncategorized
**Created:** [July 5, 2008, 3:57pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/nested-arraycollections-and-nested-repeaters/265187 "2008-07-05T15:57:40Z")
**Posts on this page:** 1
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![nburlington](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/nburlington/32/1365_2.png) [@nburlington](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/nburlington)
#### Post date: [July 5, 2008, 3:57pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/nested-arraycollections-and-nested-repeaters/265187/1 "2008-07-05T15:57:40Z")

</div>

I can’t figure out how to get a dataProvider from a nested ArrayCollection. I’ll try to provide as much code as possible without dumping my whole project in. If I miss something critical, let me know.

Here is the concept. Clients have Projects. Projects have Images. I want to show this relationship in a form. Displaying the list of Images for each Project is where I’m stumbling.

This is what it looks like in xml.

```auto
<data>

<client name="clientName">

		<project name="project1">
			<image name="image_1.jpg" />
			<image name="image_2.jpg" />
			<image name="image_3.jpg" />
			<image name="image_4.jpg" />
		</project>

<project name="project2">
			<image name="image_1.jpg" />
			<image name="image_2.jpg" />
		</project>
		
</client></data>

```

Now, when I load the .xml in, I have custom classes for Clients, ClientList, Project, ProjectList, ImageList and I push all the xml data into that structure. Basically each of the list classes contains a ‘list:ArrayCollection’ value that contains the various items in that list as well as the functions to add and remove items in the list. The lists are what I use as dataProviders in the form.

Each Client object has a ProjectList that contains all the Projects for that Client. In turn, each Project has an ImageList that contains all the images for that project.

The populateForm below is triggered when a combobox changes. It receives the event with a client attached.

```auto
  private function populateForm(event:Event):void{
        	//selectedClient becomes the
        	var selectedClient:Object = event.target.selectedItem;
/*this is easy enough. I already gave each client a name value and this displays it to the textfield in my form.*/
clientName.text == selectedClient.name;

/* this is also working. I'm using the 'list:ArrayCollection' of that client's projects as the dataprovider for the first repeater in my form */
projectRepeater.dataProvider = selectedClient.projects.list;

//imageRepeater.dataProvider = ?????

//skipping ahead to my mxml
<mx:Form>
<mx:FormItem>
			<mx:VBox>
				<mx:Repeater id="projectRepeater">
					<mx:Panel width="500" title="{projectRepeater.currentItem.name}">
					<mx:VBox width="100%">
						<mx:Repeater id="imageRepeater">
						<mx:List labelField="name" dataProvider="{????}"/>
						</mx:Repeater>
					</mx:VBox>
						
					</mx:Panel>
				</mx:Repeater>
			</mx:VBox>
			</mx:FormItem>
		</mx:Form>

```

How do I set an appropriate dataProvider for the imageRepeater? The projectRepeater makes sense because I can layout all projects for each client. But the images are nested. How can I target them?