[F9] for in loop

ok after reading a book on OOP Programming i have finally figured it out (well to an extent ;))

my experiment now works, i have 200 clips moving on stage, hoorah but now i'm just wondering if i should worry about giving these clips their own events or should i do it the old fashion way and run a (for in loop). I originally tried this, but soon realised that my loop was not finding any instances and therefore couldn't control any of them. Has there been changes to the for in loop?

here's my code, hopefully i've done everything right
Class:Main - inherited from an instance on stage

Code:

---

package com.balls {
       
        //flash imports
        import flash.display.Sprite
        import flash.events.*
        //ball class, used to make them balls
        import com.balls.Ball
       
        public class Main extends Sprite {

                public function Main():void{
                        var balls:Balls = new Balls()
                        addChild(balls)
                }               
        }
       
        class Balls extends Sprite {
               
                //define any variables
                private var ballNum:Number = 200
               
                public function Balls():void{
                        //create balls
                        for(var i:Number=0;i<ballNum;i++){
                                var x:Number = Math.random()*400
                                var y:Number = Math.random()*400
                                var b:Ball = new Ball(x,y)
                                //add event listener to control all balls
                                addEventListener(Event.ENTER_FRAME, controlBalls);
                                addChild(b)
                        }
                }
               
                private function controlBalls(e:Event){
                        //loop through all instances
                        for(var i:String in this){
                                var b:Sprite = this[i]
                                b.control()
                                trace(b) //traces nothing
                        }
                }
        }
}

---

Class:Ball

Code:

---

package com.balls {
       
        //flash imports
        import flash.display.MovieClip       
       
        public class Ball extends MovieClip {
               
                //make reference to our brain for outside functions
                public var control:Function
                //our inital speeds
                private var vx:Number = Math.random()*2
                private var vy:Number = Math.random()*2
               
               
                public function Ball(x:Number,y:Number):void{
                        this.x = x
                        this.y = y
                        control = moveBall
                }
               
                private function moveBall():void{
                        x += vx
                        y += vy
                }
        }
}

---

also, am i referencing the instance correctly in the for in loop: var b:Sprite - and for some weird reason i could use uint, kept returning an error, i wanted to because its faster than Number and only uses positive values

that doesn't work, but if i give each Ball its own event Listener it does. Maybe i could create an array and then loop through that array, but a for in loop should work (at least in flash8)

The for...in loop probably hasn't changed (on a side note, there is supposed to be a new for each loop though), it's the way you access children that has changed. I don't think parentMC[childName] still works, but I haven't tried this. Maybe it works if you set your movieclip-extending-class to dynamic, but that's just a wild guess, and I doubt it.

You can try to loop i from 0 to mc.numChildren, and use mc.getChildAt(i) - not sure if it will work, but it might.

If you want to access a child by name, use mc.getChildByName(name) - however, that's no good for a for...in loop.

works a treat, i'm so used to accessing dynamic objects this with the array syntax:

parent[child]

guess i'll have to adapt

cheers