Flex HTTPServices and valid xml

Question

Hi guys, I'm currently attempting to communicate with an API using Flex as the client. I'm using Flash Builders HTTPServices to do so, bit of a noob to all this. All works correctly if the accessed XML files elements are formatted correctly however if I add a hyphen to the element name I get flex warning me to the fact ie. The returned object contains an invalid name "created-on" that does not conform to the Actionscript identifier naming guidelines

This works:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<projects type="array">
  <project>
    <createdon>2010-07-10</createdon>
    <name>Project 1</name>
  </project>
</projects>

This does not:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<projects type="array">
  <project>
    <created-on>2010-07-10</created-on>
    <name>Project 1</name>
  </project>
</projects>

My question then is what can I do to make the returned xml actionscript friendly. Is there a standard or a best practice for this? I obviously don't have any control over the xml being passed.

Cheers

Answer 1

Set the resultFormat of HTTPService to e4x or xml. The default value is object and hence Flex tries to create ActionScript object for each elements in the xml tree.

<mx:HTTPService resultFormat="xml" other="attributes go here"/>