Josh
Yes, what you're describing is exactly what I described and is, in fact, what
it happening... but to say I don't ever need to do this? Well... yes... I need
to do this... and it has nothing to do with the garbage collector.
Here, let me explain in another way....
I have a custom object... lets say it's a Person object. It has various
properties, but several are Date types. These are all consecutive, like a
workflow, and I want to be able to address them in order via an array... like
this...
var person : Person = new Person();
person.wakeup = new Date();person.breakfast = new Date();person.lunch = new
Date();person.dinner = null;person.bedtime = null;
var timeArr : Array = new Array();
timeArr[0] = person.wakeup;timeArr[1] = person.breakfast;timeArr[2] =
person.lunch;timeArr[3] = person.dinner;timeArr[4] = person.bedtime;
Then some other code figures out where we are in the flow of the day's events...
var status : int;
if (some criteria)
{ event = 2; }
But I determine lunch hasn't actually happened yet, so it shouldn't have a Date
yet. I need to blank out this value that was previously set in the Person
object...
if (some criteria)
{ timeArr[event] = null; }
But since these references don't seem to propogate backwards, nulling one of
the array elements doesn't affect the original property. That's the *whole
purpose* of reference vs value... a reference is a pointer to memory space...
so if I null that memory space it should affect all the vars pointing to that
memory space.
Does that make more sense?Darren
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: [EMAIL PROTECTED]: Thu, 17 Jul 2008 11:30:29
+1000Subject: Re: [flexcoders] Array reference vs values
When you do this: var date:Date = new Date();You're creating an instance of
Date and a reference to it named "date".When you do this: var ref:Date =
arr[0] as Date;You're creating another reference to the same instance, this
time your reference is named "ref". So when you set ref = null, you're making
"ref" point to nothing. "date" and "arr[0]" remain unchanged. You don't need
to, nor can you remove the date instance created above. That's the job of the
garbage collector.-Josh
On Thu, Jul 17, 2008 at 11:25 AM, Darren Houle <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
