CODEWITHSUNDEEP
flashactionscript-3variables
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Reputation: 572

Set Dynamic Variable name In ActionScript 3.0

I need to set custom variable name for every iteration. Why this isn't possible?

for (var i:uint = 0; i < 50; i++)
{
   var ['name' +i] = new Sprite();
}
*//1840: Syntax error: expecting identifier before left bracket*

Upvotes: 6

Views: 16157

Answers (3)

Oliver
Oliver

Reputation: 487

Though not recommended as dynamic classes are slower than sealed classes, you can certainly make the class dynamic and then use this["varname"] to set the variable. You need to specify a class as dynamic even when extending a dynamic class like Movieclip (sub classes don't inherit this).

dynamic public class MyClass{
....
....
....
for (var i:uint = 0; i < 50; i++)
{
   this['name' +i] = new Sprite();
}

Upvotes: 0

Myk
Myk

Reputation: 6215

There is sort of a way around this, depending on what you're doing. If these clips are all added to stage then you can use the getChildByName method to access them. Your setup would look something like this:

var clips:Array = [];

for (var i:int = 0; i < 100; i++) {
    clips[i] = new MovieClip();
    clips[i].name = "clip" + i;
    addChild(clips[i]);
}

trace (getChildByName("clip2")); // traces [object MovieClip]

This is done by querying the display API, though, so you can't use getChildByName on anything that's not added to a display list somewhere.

Hope that helps!

Upvotes: 3

Glenn
Glenn

Reputation: 5342

You want to use a hash map to do this. 

var map:Object = {};
for (var i:uint = 0; i < 50; i++)
{
   map['name' +i] = new Sprite();
}

Otherwise you're confusing the compiler. Dynamic names for local variables aren't allowed.

Upvotes: 9

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