var req;
var userCallback;


function processReqChange() {
    // only if req shows "loaded"
    if (req.readyState == 4) {
        // only if "OK"
        if (req.status == 200) {
	       	if (userCallback)
        		userCallback(req);
            // ...processing statements go here...
        } else {
            alert("There was a problem retrieving the XML data:\n" + req.statusText);
        }
    }
}

function loadXMLDoc(url, callback) {
	req = false;
    // branch for native XMLHttpRequest object
    if(window.XMLHttpRequest) {
    	try {
			req = new XMLHttpRequest();
        } catch(e) {
			req = false;
        }
    // branch for IE/Windows ActiveX version
    } else if(window.ActiveXObject) {
       	try {
        	req = new ActiveXObject("Msxml2.XMLHTTP");
      	} catch(e) {
        	try {
          		req = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
        	} catch(e) {
          		req = false;
        	}
		}
    }
	if(req) {
		userCallback = callback;
		req.onreadystatechange = processReqChange;
		req.open("GET", url, true);
		req.send("");
//		alert(url);		
	}
}

// retrieve text of an XML document element, including
// elements using namespaces
function getElementTextNS(prefix, local, parentElem, index) {
    var result = "";
    if (prefix && isIE) {
        // IE/Windows way of handling namespaces
        result = parentElem.getElementsByTagName(prefix + ":" + local)[index];
    } else {
        // the namespace versions of this method 
        // (getElementsByTagNameNS()) operate
        // differently in Safari and Mozilla, but both
        // return value with just local name, provided 
        // there aren't conflicts with non-namespace element
        // names
        result = parentElem.getElementsByTagName(local)[index];
    }
    if (result) {
        // get text, accounting for possible
        // whitespace (carriage return) text nodes 
        if (result.childNodes.length > 1) {
            return result.childNodes[1].nodeValue;
        } else {
            return result.firstChild.nodeValue;    		
        }
    } else {
        return "n/a";
    }
}