Help with Dynamic Menu

[subSE7EN]

Hey everyone,
I'm developing a piece right now and have come to a stand still. The menu part
of the project will contain a number of "Business Categories" and then once a
category is clicked, the businesses within that category will be shown...much
like a tree style menu. We've also got a database with all of the categories
listed, and the businesses are linked to their respective category(s). Once a
business name is clicked, it will send that business' "business ID" variable
to a PHP file which will return with that business' info (which is held on the
database)...to finally be shown in the flash piece.

What I would potentially like to avoid is having to update the menu system in
the XML by hand, because we will have a user friendly backend with which the
customer can add and delete businesses in the directory...and if I have to
update it by hand every time the menu changes, it will get to be very time
consuming and wasteful.

Here are my ideas for how to make this project come to life:
- write a PHP file which would grab the categories and their businesses then
PRINT text identical to an XML file...and load that text into flash as XML
-figure out a way to load the categories and businesses directly from the DB
into flash

Keeping in mind that each business button must have its' ID (which is also
documented on the database) attached to it.
Any ideas, tips, mental or emotional support (hah) would be GREAT. Even some
links could help.

This is my first dynamic menu system...and i have no doubts or fears that it
won't be great, just need a bit of guidance.
Thanks for your help!
Jess Campbell

[LuigiL]

Check this tutorial: [url]http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/flash/articles/flash_xmlphp.html[/url]