Remove Annoying XML Namespaces in Flex/AS3

My buddy pointed out another approach that I show here — it’s easier and doesn’t actually remove the namespace.

XML namespaces can be a real pain in the a$$ in AS3, so I often just rip them out. I mean think about it…when you get some XML payload back in a web service response, do you really care or need the namespace? Nah….just rip that bad boy out and starting using your XML baby.

Here’s my quick and dirty AS3 XML Namespace Ripper — for the sake of argument and a quick example, just assume this is in a Responder object like a Caringorm business delegate, but it should probably exist in a static XML util:

public function result(response:Object):void
{
var xmlString:String;
var xmlnsPattern:RegExp;
var namespaceRemovedXML:String;
var responseXML:XML;

// get the XML payload
if(ResultEvent(response).result is XMLList)
{
response = ResultEvent(response).result as XMLList;
}
else
{
response = ResultEvent(response).result as XML;
}

// convert it to a string
xmlString = response.toXMLString();

// define the regex pattern to remove the namespaces from the string
xmlnsPattern = new RegExp("xmlns[^\"]*\"[^\"]*\"", "gi");

// remove the namespaces from the string representation of the XML
namespaceRemovedXML = xmlString.replace(xmlnsPattern, "");

// set the string rep. of the XML back to real XML
responseXML = new XML(namespaceRemovedXML);

// do something with the XML
}

Thanks for the quick refresher on regex Johnny!