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Flash Reference Guide

Aug 22, 2003

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In this section of the guide, you’ll learn to work with arrays in ActionScript and use the Array class.

Arrays are very useful for situations where you need structured data. A good example of this is a shopping cart. You create an online store in which a customer can purchase products. As each product is selected, the customer will store his products in a shopping cart. The shopping cart itself is a collection of similar types of data. This is an array. Your shopping cart is a visual representation of an array.

Working With Arrays

An array is an object whose property is identified by numbers representing their positions in the structure. Essentially, an array is a list of items. It’s important to remember that each element in an array doesn’t have to be the same data type. You can mix numbers, dates, strings, and objects, and even add a nested array at each array index.

The following example is a simple array of month names.

var myArr:Array = new Array();
myArr[0] = "January";
myArr[1] = "February";
myArr[2] = "March";
myArr[3] = "April";

You can also write the same array as this:

var myArr:Array = new Array("January", "February", "March", "April");

Or, you can use shorthand syntax, as follows:

var myArr:Array = ["January", "February", "March", "April"];

An array is a structure for holding data. Picture an office building, where each floor contains a different piece of data (such as accounting on floor 3, and engineering on floor 5). You can store different kinds of data in a single array, including other arrays. So, for example, each floor of this hypothetical building could also contain multiple kinds of content (executives and accounting might share floor 3).

An array contains elements, which are equivalent to each floor of the building. Each element has a numeric position (the index), which is how you refer to each element’s position in the array. This is similar to how each floor in a building has a floor number. Each element can either hold a piece of data (which could be a number, string, Boolean value, or even an array or object) or be left empty.

You can also control and modify the array itself, adding and removing elements or moving values to different elements. You might, for example, want to move the engineering department to the basement. Arrays let you move values around, and they let you change the size of the array (say, renovate the building and add more floors or remove floors).

Therefore, the building (the array) contains floors (the elements), which are numbered floors (the index), and each floor contains one or more departments (the values).

The Array Class

The Array class lets you access and manipulate indexed arrays. An indexed array is an object whose properties and number represent its position in the array.You refer to this number as the index. All indexed arrays are zero-based, which means that the first element in the array is [0], the second element is [1], and so on. To create an Array object, you use the constructor new Array(). To access the elements of an array, you use the array access ([]) operator.

You can store a wide variety of data types in an array element, including numbers, strings, objects, and even other arrays. You can create a multidimensional array by creating an indexed array and assigning a different indexed array to each of its elements. Such an array is considered multidimensional because it can be used to represent data in a table.

Array assignment is by reference rather than by value: when you assign one array variable to another array variable, both refer to the same array:

var oneArray:Array = new Array("a", "b", "c");
var twoArray:Array = oneArray; // Both array variables refer to the same array.
twoArray[0] = "z"; 
trace(oneArray); // Output: z,b,c.

You should not use the Array class to create associative arrays, which are different data structures that contain named elements instead of numbered elements.

You should use the Object class to create associative arrays (also called hashes). Although ActionScript permits you to create associative arrays using the Array class, you can not use any of the Array class methods or properties. At its core, an associative array is an instance of the Object class, and each key-value pair is represented by a property and its value.

Another reason to declare an associative array using the Object data type is that you can then use an object literal to populate your associative array (but only at the time you declare it). The following example creates an associative array using an object literal, accesses items using both the dot operator and the array access operator, and then adds a new key-value pair by creating a new property:

var myAssocArray:Object = {fname:"John", lname:"Public"};
trace(myAssocArray.fname); // Output: John
trace(myAssocArray["lname"]); // Output: Public
myAssocArray.initial = "Q";
trace(myAssocArray.initial); // Output: Q

Arrays are an effective method for managing structured data in your Flash movies.

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