Creating dynamic charts from an external file - Page 5

Getting data into the chart

The third frame will contain all the actionscript for loading the data into the chart component.We will reference the chart by using the instance name MyChart.

The data and labels for the chart are contained within a comma separated list so the first thing we need to do is to separate the values into arrays as shown below.

//create arrays containing variables

var ArrLabel = loading.ChartLabels.split(",");

var ArrValue = loading.ChartValues.split(",");

Then create a data source for the chart that will contain these arrays.

var ChartData = new DataProviderClass();

Loop through the ArrLabel and ArrValue arrays and add their values to the ChartData data source. I chose the names DataLabel and DataValue for the fieldnames.

for (var i=0; i < ArrLabel.length; i++) {

   ChartData.addItem({DataLabel:ArrLabel[i], DataValue:ArrValue[i]});

}

The next step is to link the datasource to the MyChart object and indicate which fields contain the labels and values.

MyChart.setDataProvider(ChartData);

MyChart.setLabelSource("DataLabel");

MyChart.setValueSource("DataValue");

Test the movie and you should see a chart populated with the values from your external file.

The complete code for the third frame is on the next page.