Stuff You Didn't Know About ActionScript

Christophe Herreman @herrodius

... or an exploration of the ActionScript 3 language in which you might discover new things that you were not aware of and that one day might come in handy, or in which you will want to scream out WTF's so loud that the whole venue might think I'm presenting naked whilst in reality you are just looking at a piece of ActionScript code that is so counterintuitive or looks rather puzzling you wonder how anyone came up with the idea to implement certain parts of the API this way, which on the other hand makes the language also very fun to work with once you know how to deal with these peculiarities and it becomes clear that ActionScript is actually pretty cool and powerful ...

About me
Run Stack & Heap, a development, consulting and training company based in Belgium specializing in Web / RIA Development Certified expert Flex with AIR, loved Flash since 1999 Founder of Spring ActionScript and AS3Commons Apache Flex committer

Operators

Equality "=="
Checks if 2 values are equal, and applies data conversion if the values have different data types. "hello" == "hello" "5" == 5 true == 1 false == 0 "true" == true null == undefined // true // true // true // true // false // true

Strict Equality "==="

Checks if 2 values and their types are equal. "hello" === "hello" "5" === 5 true === 1 false === 0 "true" === true null === undefined // true // compile error // false // false // false // false

Equality "=="
Complex data types are compared by reference, not value. var a:Array = [1, 2, 3]; var b:Array = [1, 2, 3]; a == b // false

var c:Array = a; a == c // true

Conditional "?:"
Known as the Ternary Operator. var result:Boolean = (a > b) ? x : y; // shorthand for var result:Boolean; if (a > b) { result = x; } else { result = y; }

Logical OR "||="
function (a:Object) { a ||= new Object(); } // shorthand for function (a:Object) { if (a === null) { a = new Object(); } }

Logical AND "&&="

function toHTMLTag (s:String) { s &&= "<" + s + ">"; return s; } // shorthand for function toHTMLTag (s:String) { if (s !== null && (s.length > 0)) s = "<" + s + ">"; return s; }

"as"
Casts a value to another data type, returning null if the cast fails. "hello" as String 5 as String true as MyClass String("hello") String(5) MyClass(true) // "hello" // null // null // "hello" // "5" // Runtime Error

"is" vs "instanceof"
Check if a value is of a certain data type. var s:Sprite = new Sprite(); s is Sprite s is DisplayObject s is IEventDispatcher // true // true // true

s instanceof Sprite // true s instanceof DisplayObject // true s instanceof IEventDispatcher // false

"::" name qualifier

Identifies the namespace of an object. public namespace Dutch; public namespace French; Dutch function hello():String { return "hallo"; } French function hello():String { return "bonjour"; }

"::" name qualifier

Dutch::hello() French::hello() // "hallo" // "bonjour"

"::" name qualifier

"public", "private", "protected", "internal" are also namespaces. public function get a():String; private function set a(value:String); trace(a) a = "hello" // compile error // compile error

trace(public::a) private::a = "hello"

"in" vs Object.hasOwnProperty
Check if an object contains a certain property. "CASEINSENSITIVE" in Array "CASEINSENSITIVE" in [] "length" in Array "length" in [] // // // // true false true true

[].hasOwnProperty("CASEINSENSITIVE") // false [].hasOwnProperty("length") // true

"arguments"
An array available in each function that contains the arguments passed to the function. function myFunction (x:int) { for(var i:uint=0; i<arguments.length; i++){ trace(arguments[i]); } } myFunction(1, 2, 3); // 1 // 2 // 3

"..." Rest Arguments

Pass an arbitrary number of extra arguments to a function. function myFunction (x:int, ... rest) { for (var i:uint = 0; i< rest.length; i++) { trace(rest[i]); } } myFunction(1, 2, 3); // 2 // 3

Tips & Tricks

Object creation
var a:Array = new Array(); var a:Array = []; var o:Object = new Object(); var o:Object = {}; // faster

// faster

var v:Vector.<String> = new Vector.<String>(); v.push("a"); v.push("b"); var v:Vector.<String> = new <String>["a", "b"];

Object References
var a:Object = {}; a.name = "John"; var b:Object = a; b.name = "Elvis"; trace(a.name); // output "Elvis"

Object Copies
Create deep or shallow copies depending on the scenario. // deep copy private function clone(obj:Object):Object { var bytes:ByteArray = new ByteArray(); bytes.writeObject(obj); bytes.position = 0; return bytes.readObject(); }

Events
Always override the "clone" method in an Event subclass. Prevents runtime type coercion errors when redispatching. class MyEvent extends Event { public function MyEvent(data:Object){ _data = data; } override public function clone():Event { return new MyEvent(_data); } }

for...in vs. for each...in

var arr:Array = ["a", "b", "c"]; // loops through keys (0, 1, 2) for ( var i in arr ) { trace( i ); } // loop through values ("a", "b", "c") for each ( var s:String in arr ) { trace( s ); } Gotcha: order is not guaranteed, use for loop with counter

trace()
You can pass multiple arguments to the trace() method. No need to compose a string.
trace(new Date(2012, 4, 22), "Aloha", Math.PI, true); // Tue May 22 00:00:00 GMT+0200 2012 Aloha 3.141592653589793 true

Labeled Loops
Use "label" on a loop to name it. Useful when breaking from nested loops.
mainLoop: for (var i:uint = 0; i<10; i++) { for (var j:uint = 0; j<10; j++) { if (i == 5 && j == 7) { break mainLoop; } } }

Global Functions
Declare a single function in an *.as file and name the file the same as the function. // in file: myGlobalFunction.as package { function myGlobalFunction():void { trace("in myGlobalFunction"); } }

Adding Methods to Built-in Classes

Extend the behavior of built-in classes by adding methods to the prototype.
Array.prototype.removeItem = function (item:*):void { var index:int = this.indexOf(item); if (index > -1) { this.splice(index, 1); } }; var a:Array = [1, 2, 3]; a.removeItem(2); trace(a); // 1, 3

Gotchas & WTF's

Casting
var o:MyObject = new MyObject(); var o1:MyObject = MyObject(o); var o2:MyObject = o as MyObject; // o1 === o2 var a:Array = [1, 2, 3]; var a1:Array = Array(a); // new Array !!! var a2:Array = a as Array; // a1 !== a2 Also the case with Date and Error classes. Watch out!

Casting to Boolean
Boolean(true) Boolean(false) Boolean(0) Boolean(1) Boolean(-1) Boolean("true") Boolean("false") Boolean("") Boolean(" ") Boolean("0") Boolean("1") Boolean(null) Boolean(undefined) Boolean(Object) Boolean({}) // true // false // false // true // true // true // true // false // true // true // true // false // false // true // true

Array class
var a:Array = new Array(); var a:Array = []; var a:Array = new Array(10); var a:Array = [10]; // empty array // empty array // array with length 10 // array with 1 element: 10

var a:Array = new Array(1, 2, 3); // array with values 1, 2, 3 var a:Array = [1, 2, 3]; // array with values 1, 2, 3

Date class
new new 02 new new Date(); Date(2012); // current date // 01/01/1970 01:00:

Date(2012, 1); // 01/02/2012 00:00:00 Date(2012, 1, 1); // 01/02/2012 00:00:00

public function Date( yearOrTimevalue:Object, month:Number, date:Number = 1, hour:Number = 0, minute:Number = 0, second:Number = 0, millisecond:Number = 0)

// 0 to // 1 // 0 // 0 to // 0 to // 0 to

11 to 31 to 23 59 59 999

Throwing Parties
You can throw more than just errors. class AwesomeParty {} try { throw new AwesomeParty(); } catch (party:AwesomeParty) { // go loose at moNo! } Practical use?

More info
ActionScript 3 Language Reference
http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/

ActionScript 3 Language Specification

http://livedocs.adobe.com/specs/actionscript/3/

Twitter @herrodius, @stackandheap Stack & Heap Labs http://labs.stackandheap.com

Questions ?

Thank you !