Author: Nick Kuh | Website: http://www.editioninteractive.co.uk

Try the following trace:

Nick = new Human("Nick","male");
fTraceRightArmWaving(Nick);

function fTraceRightArmWaving(obj) {
	var rightArmWaving = (obj.arms.armRight.bWaving) ? " is " : " isn't ";
	trace(obj.name+ " is a "+obj.sex+". "+ obj.referers.n1 + 			rightArmWaving+"waving with " + obj.referers.n2.toLowerCase() + " right hand.")
}

For the temporary variable rightArmWaving I've used a variation on the if/else method. If the condition in brackets returns true then the variable will be set to the value on the left side of the colon. If the conditions returns false then the variable will be set to the value on the right hand side. Although you might think that I've overcomplicated matters with this code and that the same results could be achieved in a more simplified way this is a good example of using object oriented programming to make an 'intelligent' object which can now be manipulated with ease. Let's say that you want to create a function which will stop or start your Human's arms waving:

function fWaveArms(obj,bWaving){
	for(var i in obj.arms){
		obj.arms[i].bWaving = bWaving;
	}
}

// this call would make both of Nick's arms wave
fWaveArms(Nick,true)

// this call would make both of Nick's arms stop waving
fWaveArms(Nick,false)

To really show you the advantages in improved coding efficiency here we can create an army from our Human class:

function fInitArmy () {
	var arrMales = ["Nick","Yan","Pete","Andrew","Stelios","Niklas"];
	var arrFemales = ["Camy","Jessica","Anna","Nicole","Jane","Helen"];
	var maxLoop = arrMales.length;
	for(var i=0;i<%lt%>maxLoop;i++){
		this[arrMales[i]] = new Human (arrMales[i],"male");
		this[arrFemales[i]] = new Human (arrFemales[i],"female");
	}
	fWhosWaving (arrMales);
	fWhosWaving (arrFemales);
}

function fWhosWaving (arrTroop) {
	var maxLoop = arrTroop.length;
	for(var i=0;i<%lt%>maxLoop;i++){
		fTraceRightArmWaving(this[arrTroop[i]]);
	}
}

fInitArmy ();

In my for loops you'll notice that I create a variable maxLoop to use rather than just putting arrMales.length in the loop. This is more memory efficient as it stops the Flash player from wasting memory by calculating the length of the array every time it loops.

» Level Intermediate

Added: 2003-01-01 Rating: 7 Votes: 27 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 (10 being the highest) Thank you for voting! We have encountered an error. Please try again later. You've already voted.

» Author

I am a Flash Developer with 3 years commercial experience programming database-driven games and applications. I am currently working on a contract job developing e-learning software for UK schools.

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