XML Number Parsing

Simple question, yet I have no idea what to do. So I want Flash to treat a data from a XML node as a Number. I tried putting it in a

Number (<expression>)

but it didn’t work. The only working solution so far is to give a text field the value of the node and then to use the code above to turn the _txt.text value to a Number. It DOES work, but I really don’t feel like doing this with every single Number value I have. Besides, it is pretty lame way of getting this problem solved. So, if anyone could help me - please, it is quite urgent! And thank you in advanced.