# XML simple access question

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/xml-simple-access-question/296771>\
**Category:** flash\
**Created:** [September 20, 2009, 4:40am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/xml-simple-access-question/296771 "2009-09-20T04:40:58Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cpthk](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aca169/32.png) [@cpthk](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/cpthk)\
**Post date:** [September 20, 2009, 4:40am UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/xml-simple-access-question/296771/1 "2009-09-20T04:40:58Z")

</div>

```auto

public class XmlExample extends Sprite {        
        public function XmlExample() {
            var emp:XML =
                <employees>
                    <employee ssn="123-123-1234">
                        <name first="John" last="Doe"/>
                        <address>
                            <street>11 Main St.</street>
                            <city>San Francisco</city>
                            <state>CA</state>
                            <zip>98765</zip>
                        </address>
                    </employee>
                    <employee ssn="789-789-7890">
                        <name first="Mary" last="Roe"/>
                        <address>
                            <street>99 Broad St.</street>
                            <city>Newton</city>
                            <state>MA</state>
                            <zip>01234</zip>
                        </address>
                    </employee>
                </employees>;

```

I saw this example on flex documentation. To access the element, I could do:

```auto
emp.employee[0].address.zip

```

But I don’t understand why not

```auto
emp.employees.employee[0].address.zip

```

Why they design to skip the top element “employees”? From my understanding, if it’s a arraycollection, then I have to add an extra “employees”.