FLEX noobie, hopefully get a few language handling questions answered!

[Fou-Lu]

Ok, so I hope this is the right place to post this kind of topic, I figured either here or XML and its only kinda like XML directly.
Anyway, as you may know I'm mainly a PHP developer. So, I'm looking for a similar method to how PHP handles included pages. That is, the included page in PHP also takes any output into the current scope of the application.

I have a... what is it called... a changing panel... thing (if this isn't clear I'll look it up to see what its called), that I place different components on depending on the link that is selected (more accurately a button but that shouldn't matter). I'm hoping to separate the code on each of these panels into a mxml or as class of their own, but I don't know if they can be easily included back in (not like the import exactly). Hopefully someone knows if this can be done.

As well, the next one is relating to trees, specifically to how the data should be formed prior to the input. I'm dealing with a hierarchical data structure which I will be extracting from a database. Though XML makes the most sense for the structure type, each of these are objects, so I don't think I can jam them easily into an XML structure (especially if I retrieve them from PHP or ASP). So I'm thinking a Graph is the best option for this type of structure (especially since some things may appear later in the tree under different parents). Does FLEX have a built in Graph object, or should I just make my own? If I make my own, how do I define it as iterable so that it can be used in a tree?

Any help would be greatly appreciated!

[gnomeontherun]

Now my experience with Flex has been limited as well and as of late I haven't touched it in months. I do remember though that the language of the program (MXML) is designed to create the application, and not necessarily to handle the data that it is processing. I honestly don't know where to go from there, but here is a link:

http://mark-shepherd.com/blog/2006/11/17/a-flex-component-for-graph-visualization/

Perhaps you could talk a little more about what the data is and what you mean by Graph...this kind of graph? Or is graph a different data object like an array? I'm not a PHP or ASP programmer, so this doesn't completely make sense to me.

[Fou-Lu]

Yep, I pretty much got that the mxml was for the display, and the AS for the processing. I was just kinda hoping there was a way to do the inclusion, but I may have to just create some custom components instead.
Thats ok no worries.
As for graphs, they are an abstract data structure, hold on I'll get a link to them:
Here we go, this information pretty much sums up the graph:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graph_theory

Very handy to use, fairly easy to program and many many uses available. Unfortunately they are not predefined in PHP either (to my knowledge anyway :P). Check it out, definitely worth knowing how to use!

Oh yeah duh, you wanted to know more on the data too :P
The system I'm working on is a tagging system for media. The tags are grouped and controlled by child / parent relationships, hence the usage of the flex tree for display - its a perfect choice.

[nikos101]

The tags are grouped and controlled by child / parent relationships, hence the usage of the flex tree for display - its a perfect choice.

One of the things that got me interested in Flex, this stuff is pain to do with ajax