# XML text nodes and nodeValue

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/xml-text-nodes-and-nodevalue/153684>\
**Category:** flash\
**Created:** [July 3, 2005, 8:50pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/xml-text-nodes-and-nodevalue/153684 "2005-07-03T20:50:30Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![mprzybylski](https://yyz1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/user_avatar/forum.kirupa.com/mprzybylski/32/613_2.png) [@mprzybylski](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/mprzybylski)\
**Post date:** [July 3, 2005, 8:50pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/xml-text-nodes-and-nodevalue/153684/1 "2005-07-03T20:50:30Z")

</div>

so i have ignoreWhite set to true and am trying to get textual data out of an xml node. my node looks like so:

\<description\>this is a description\</description\>

so i navigated to the node with the following variable:

var descriptionNode:String = newsXML.firstChild.firstChild.childNodes\*.childNodes[2];

and it gives me the output when i trace it with the node and the description in it. but i don’t need the node, i need the text only, so i tried to add a nodeValue at the end of that and it output as null. why am i brainfarting right now and can’t figure out how to output just the text and not the text AND the node?

any help is greatly appreciated.