Use ActionScript to load external files

To load existing XML data, or use a different format for the XML file, use the loadVariables action, the getURL action, the LoadVars object, or the XML object to create a document that contains multilanguage text by placing the text in an external text or XML file and loading the file into the movie clip at runtime.

Save the external file in UTF‑8 (recommended), UTF‑16BE, or UTF‑16LE format, using an application that supports the format. If you are using UTF‑16BE or UTF‑16LE format, the file must begin with a BOM to identify the encoding format to Flash Player. The following table lists the BOM to include to identify the encoding:
Note: Most text editors that can save files in UTF‑16BE or LE automatically add the BOMs to the files.

UTF Format

First Byte

Second Byte

UTF‑16BE

OxFE

OxFF

UTF‑16LE

OxFF

OxFE
Note: If the external file is an XML file, you cannot use an XML encoding tag to change the file encoding. Save the file in a supported Unicode format.
  1. In the Flash authoring application, create a dynamic or input text field to show the text in the document.
  2. In the Property inspector, with the text field selected, assign an instance name to the text field.
  3. Outside of Flash, create a text or XML file that defines the value for the text field variable.
  4. Save the XML file in UTF‑8 (recommended), UTF‑16BE, or UTF‑16LE format.
  5. Use one of the following ActionScript procedures to reference the external file and load it into the dynamic or input text field:

    • Use the loadVariables action to load an external file.

    • Use the getURL action to load an external file from a specified URL.

    • Use the LoadVars object (a predefined client-server object) to load an external text file from a specified URL.

    • Use the XML object (a predefined client-server object) to load an external XML file from a specified URL. For more information, see XML in the ActionScript 2.0 Language Reference.

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