Filtering a Flex tilelist using RegExp

My guess would be that you need quotes around the regex in line 3:

allWords = allWords.replace("/\s+/g","|");

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Using the quotes didn't change anything.  Still getting that "not a function" error.  Someone on another forum mentioned that an item of type object doesn't have a method called text and that's causing the problem.  But I don't know, it works on a datagrid as expected.

Did you try taking the parens of of text?

I am not a flex programmer, but I'm just trying to be logical, so please forgive me if I sound retarded :)

return item.text.match(new RegExp(allWords, "i"));

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I've tried all the small trial-and-error things like that but it's still the same error.

I would pass a String in to the function, instead of an object.

Then before you call the function, you would cast the item to a string

ie.

 ...
 ..
 .    
 
 var itemText:String = item.text as String; // You could do this in the function, But this way only a Sting can be passed to the function rather than any object, which gives runtime errors rather than compile time errors.
 
 var isFiltered:Boolean = filterFunction(itemText); // call the function
 
 .
 
private function filterFunc(itemText:String):Boolean 
    {
                var allWords:String=searchField.text;
                allWords = allWords.replace(/\s+/g,"|");
     
                return itemText.match(new RegExp(allWords, "i"));
    }

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Must be getting close here.  There's one error popping up on the line
var itemText:String = item.text as String;  "access to undefined property item"

item is just a variable to hold your object. you need to assign that variable as something.

ie the object that you passed into the filterFunc(item:Object):Boolean before. I assume that it is an object in the TileList

 ...
 ..
 .   
 
 var item:Object = yourObject // this is the object that you were trying to pass to the function before 
 
 var itemText:String = item.text as String; // You could do this in the function,
                                               But this way only a String can be passed to the function rather than any object,
                                               which gives runtime errors rather than compile time errors.
 
 var isFiltered:Boolean = filterFunction(itemText); // call the function
 
 .
 
private function filterFunc(itemText:String):Boolean 
    {
                var allWords:String=searchField.text;
                allWords = allWords.replace(/\s+/g,"|");
     
                return itemText.match(new RegExp(allWords, "i"));
    }

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My original code worked on a datagrid and I never referenced item anywhere....so maybe item  is part of   the datagrid component?  Now I'm getting really lost. haha

ok, so that your code works just change your function to this, however if you pass an object without a text property it will throw an error.

private function filterFunc(item:Object):Boolean
    {
        var allWords:String=searchField.text;
        allWords = allWords.replace(/\s+/g,"|");
 
        var itemText:String = item.text as String;
        
        return itemText.match(new RegExp(allWords, "i"));
}

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Yeah, the error that comes up is can't access a property of a null item..  It's looking like this can't be done.

If you post code that calls this function, there is a way.

This is all the relevant code:

            private function filterFunc(item:Object):Boolean {
                              var allWords:String=stateName.text;
                              allWords = allWords.replace(/\s+/g,"|");                              
                      return item.text().match(new RegExp(allWords, "i"));
            }


      <mx:XML id="xml" source="gallery.xml"/>
      <mx:XMLListCollection id="xmlListColl" source="{xml.image}"  filterFunction="filterFunc"  />

      <mx:TileList id="tileList" dataProvider="{xmlListColl}"       columnCount="3" columnWidth="200"
                  rowCount="2" rowHeight="200" themeColor="haloSilver" verticalScrollPolicy="on" itemClick="tileList_itemClick(event);" >
         <mx:itemRenderer>
            <mx:Component>
               <mx:VBox paddingLeft="30" width="150" height="150" horizontalScrollPolicy="off" verticalScrollPolicy="off">
                  <mx:Image height="50" width="50" source="{data.@thumbnailImage}" />
                  <mx:Label id="foo" text="{data.@title}" />
               </mx:VBox>
            </mx:Component>
         </mx:itemRenderer>            
      </mx:TileList>
      <mx:TextInput id="searchField" change="xmlListColl.refresh()"/>

This error would have come back if the parenthesis had been removed from:
       return item.text().match(new RegExp(allWords, "i")); it should have been:

       return item.text.match(new RegExp(allWords, "i"));

Anyway item is the XML object created, so you just need the name of the node that you want to filter, which appears to be title?

private function filterFunc(item:Object):Boolean // item is an XML object
    {
        var allWords:String=searchField.text;
        allWords = allWords.replace(/\s+/g,"|");
 
        var itemText:String = item.@title as String; // here is where you want
                                                     // to put the name of the node you want to filter.
        
        return itemText.match(new RegExp(allWords, "i"));
}

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Still getting a null object.  There's also a warning on the return line "array used where a boolean value is expected"  I've attached a test file if that would help.  Maybe the xml is causing the problem?

<gallery>
	<image title="Flex"
		thumbnailImage="assets/fx_appicon-tn.gif"
		fullImage="assets/fx_appicon.jpg"/>
	<image title="Flash n lots of stuff"
			thumbnailImage="assets/fl_appicon-tn.gif"
			fullImage="assets/fl_appicon.jpg"/> 
	<image title="Illustrator"
			thumbnailImage="assets/ai_appicon-tn.gif"
			fullImage="assets/ai_appicon.jpg"/> 
	<image title="Dreamweaver"
			thumbnailImage="assets/dw_appicon-tn.gif"
			fullImage="assets/dw_appicon.jpg"/> 
	<image title="ColdFusion"
			thumbnailImage="assets/cf_appicon-tn.gif"
			fullImage="assets/cf_appicon.jpg"/> 
	<image title="Flash Player"
			thumbnailImage="assets/fl_player_appicon-tn.gif"
			fullImage="assets/fl_player_appicon.jpg" />
</gallery>

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Thanks!  Finally working now.