Cancels a specified setInterval() call.

See also

Each call of the myRepeatingFunction method increments the counter property, and when it equals the stopCount property, the clearInterval() method is called with the property intervalId which is a reference id to the interval that was created earlier.

package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.utils.*;

    public class ClearIntervalExample extends Sprite {
		private var intervalDuration:Number = 1000; // duration between intervals, in milliseconds
		private var intervalId:uint;
		private var counter:uint 	= 0;
		private var stopCount:uint 	= 3;
		
        public function ClearIntervalExample() {
			intervalId = setInterval(myRepeatingFunction, intervalDuration, "Hello", "World");
        }

        public function myRepeatingFunction():void {
            trace(arguments[0] + " " + arguments[1]);

			counter++;
			if(counter == stopCount) {
				trace("Clearing Interval");
				clearInterval(intervalId);	
			}
        }
    }
}

Cancels a specified setTimeout() call.

See also

A loop is created to count to one million. If the system can process this request faster than a second can expire, clearTimeout() will remove the setTimeout() request, and myDelayedFunction() will not be called.

package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.utils.*;

    public class ClearTimeoutExample extends Sprite {
		private var delay:Number = 1000; // delay before calling myDelayedFunction
		private var intervalId:uint;
		private var count:uint = 1000000;
		
        public function ClearTimeoutExample() {
			intervalId = setTimeout(myDelayedFunction, delay);
			startCounting();
        }

		public function startCounting():void {
			var i:uint = 0;
			do {
				if(i == count-1) {
					clearTimeout(intervalId);
					trace("Your computer can count to " + count + " in less than " + delay/1000 + " seconds.");	
				}
				i++;
			} while(i < count)			
		}
		
        public function myDelayedFunction():void {
			trace("Time expired.");
		}
    }
}

Produces an XML object that describes the ActionScript object named as the parameter of the method. This method implements the programming concept of reflection for the ActionScript language.

If the value parameter is an instance of a type, the returned XML object includes all the instance properties of that type, but does not include any static properties. You can check for this condition when you parse the XML object by examining the value of the <type> tag's isStatic attribute, which is false when the value parameter is an instance of a type.

To obtain the static properties of a type, pass the type itself for the value parameter. The returned XML object includes not only the type's static properties, but also all of its instance properties. The instance properties are nested inside a tag named <factory> to distinguish them from the static properties. In this case, the isStatic attribute of the <type> tag is true.

Note: If you need only to traverse an object's inheritance hierarchy and do not need the other information provided by describeType(), use the getQualifiedClassName() and getQualifiedSuperclassName() functions instead.

The following table describes some of the tags and attributes of the XML object generated by describeType() (all class and interface names returned are in fully qualified format):

See also

package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
	import flash.utils.describeType;
	
	public class DescribeTypeExample extends Sprite {
		public function DescribeTypeExample() {
			var child:Sprite = new Sprite();
			var description:XML = describeType(child);
			trace(description..accessor.@name.toXMLString());
		}
	}
}

Returns an escaped copy of the input string encoded as either UTF-8 or system code page, depending on the value of System.useCodePage. Use of System.useCodePage allows legacy content encoded in local code pages to be accessed by the runtime, but only on systems using that legacy code page. For example, Japanese data encoded as Shift-JIS will only be escaped and unescaped properly on an OS using a Japanese default code page.

Returns a reference to the class object of the class specified by the name parameter.

1. Variables for the background color of orange and size of 80 pixels are declared, which will later be used in drawing the square.
2. Within the constructor, a variable ClassReference of type Class is assigned to Sprite.
3. An instance of ClassReference called instance is instantiated.
4. Since instance is, by reference, a Sprite object, a square can be drawn and added to the display list using the methods available to Sprite.

package {
	import flash.display.DisplayObject;
	import flash.display.Sprite;
	import flash.utils.getDefinitionByName;

	public class GetDefinitionByNameExample extends Sprite {
		private var bgColor:uint = 0xFFCC00;
		private var size:uint = 80;

		public function GetDefinitionByNameExample() {
			var ClassReference:Class = getDefinitionByName("flash.display.Sprite") as Class;
			var instance:Object = new ClassReference();
			instance.graphics.beginFill(bgColor);
			instance.graphics.drawRect(0, 0, size, size);
			instance.graphics.endFill();
			addChild(DisplayObject(instance));
		}
	}
}

Returns the fully qualified class name of an object.

See also

Returns the fully qualified class name of the base class of the object specified by the value parameter. This function provides a quicker way of retrieving the base class name than describeType(), but also doesn't provide all the information describeType() does.

After you retrieve the name of a class with this function, you can convert the class name to a class reference with the getDefinitionByName() function.

Note: This function restricts itself to instance hierarchies, whereas the describeType() function uses class object hierarchies if the value parameter is a data type. Calling describeType() on a data type returns the superclass based on the class object hierarchy, in which all class objects inherit from Class. The getQualifiedSuperclassName() function, however, ignores the class object hierarchy and returns the superclass based on the more familiar instance hierarchy. For example, calling getQualifiedSuperclassName(String) returns Object although technically the String class object inherits from Class. In other words, the results are the same whether you use an instance of a type or the type itself.

See also

Used to compute relative time. For a Flash runtime processing ActionScript 3.0, this method returns the number of milliseconds that have elapsed since the Flash runtime virtual machine for ActionScript 3.0 (AVM2) started. For a Flash runtime processing ActionScript 2.0, this method returns the number of milliseconds since the Flash runtime began initialization. Flash runtimes use two virtual machines to process ActionScript. AVM1 is the ActionScript virtual machine used to run ActionScript 1.0 and 2.0. AVM2 is the ActionScript virtual machine used to run ActionScript 3.0. The getTimer() method behavior for AVM1 is different than the behavior for AVM2.

For a calendar date (timestamp), see the Date object.

See also

package {
    import flash.utils.getTimer;
	import flash.display.Sprite;

	public class GetTimerExample extends Sprite {
		public function GetTimerExample() {
			var duration:uint = getTimer();
			trace("duration: " + duration);
		}
	}
}

Runs a function at a specified interval (in milliseconds).

Instead of using the setInterval() method, consider creating a Timer object, with the specified interval, using 0 as the repeatCount parameter (which sets the timer to repeat indefinitely).

If you intend to use the clearInterval() method to cancel the setInterval() call, be sure to assign the setInterval() call to a variable (which the clearInterval() function will later reference). If you do not call the clearInterval() function to cancel the setInterval() call, the object containing the set timeout closure function will not be garbage collected.

See also

package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.utils.*;

    public class SetIntervalExample extends Sprite {
		private var intervalDuration:Number = 1000; // duration between intervals, in milliseconds
		
        public function SetIntervalExample() {
			var intervalId:uint = setInterval(myRepeatingFunction, intervalDuration, "Hello", "World");
        }

        public function myRepeatingFunction():void {
            trace(arguments[0] + " " + arguments[1]);
        }
    }
}

Runs a specified function after a specified delay (in milliseconds).

Instead of using this method, consider creating a Timer object, with the specified interval, using 1 as the repeatCount parameter (which sets the timer to run only once).

If you intend to use the clearTimeout() method to cancel the setTimeout() call, be sure to assign the setTimeout() call to a variable (which the clearTimeout() function will later reference). If you do not call the clearTimeout() function to cancel the setTimeout() call, the object containing the set timeout closure function will not be garbage collected.

See also

package {
    import flash.display.Sprite;
    import flash.utils.*;

    public class SetTimeoutExample extends Sprite {
		private var delay:Number = 1000; // delay before calling myDelayedFunction
		
        public function SetTimeoutExample() {
			var intervalId:uint = setTimeout(myDelayedFunction, delay, "Hello", "World");
        }

        public function myDelayedFunction():void {
            trace(arguments[0] + " " + arguments[1]);
        }
    }
}

Returns an unescaped copy of the input string, which is decoded from either system code page page or UTF-8 depending on the value of System.useCodePage. Use of System.useCodePage allows legacy content encoded in local code pages to be accessed by the runtime, but only on systems using that legacy code page. For example, Japanese data encoded as Shift-JIS will only be escaped and unescaped properly on an OS using a Japanese default code page.