Actionscript3 static variables inside functions

Question

Can i do this in actionscript 3? counter should be defined only one time when calling timer function

function timer(e:TimerEvent):void
{
    static var counter=1;
    trace("Times: " + counter );
}

Answer 1

What about:

function timer(e:TimerEvent):void
{
    this.counter = this.counter || 0;
    this.counter ++;
    trace("Times: " + this.counter );
}