OK getting there, it is getting stored in memory, I just needed to convert the stored value to an integer when displaying in the button,
screen.AddRatingButton(4, 0, strtoi(showList[showIndex].StarRating))
and as far as retrieving the values from the XML, the second way I tried works:
item.StarRating = validstr(curShow.StarRating.GetText())
but now I'm getting a Type Mismatch when I try to strtoi the stored values... i'll figure it out
aspiring