Question

I have an array of ingredients for soup as strings. These ingredients are also movieclips in my library, all linked with an identifier. I want to add the movieclips to the stage dynamically.

I tried getDefinitionByName but I keep getting an error that the variable “appel” (veg[0] in this case) is undefined.
And basically, I only have a general idea what I’m doing here, so I would be grateful if someone could explain it to me or link me to a helpful tutorial.

package  {

import flash.display.MovieClip;
import flash.display.SimpleButton;
import flash.display.DisplayObject;
import flash.events.MouseEvent;
import flash.utils.getDefinitionByName;

public class groentesoep extends MovieClip {
    const xAr:Array = [13,163,13,26,133,192,169,301,47,313,286,291,163,16];
    const yAr:Array = [12,133,133,370,484,352,256,316,241,160,468,10,53,465];                          
    const veg:Array = ["appel","bloemkool","broccoli","brood","champignons","friet","kaas","melk","paprika","prei","tomaat","ui","vis","wortel"];

    var i:int;

    public function groentesoep() {
        // constructor code
        create_intro();
    }
    public function create_intro () {
        var bord:intro = new intro();
        bord.x = -30;
        bord.y = -6;
        bord.name = "intro";
        addChild(bord);

        var btn:begin = new begin();
        btn.x = 416;
        btn.y = 255;
        btn.name = "beginKnop";
        btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, create_spel);
        addChild(btn);
    }
    public function create_spel(event:MouseEvent) {
        removeChild(getChildByName("intro"));
        getChildByName("beginKnop").removeEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, create_spel);
        removeChild(getChildByName("beginKnop"));

        var bord:spel = new spel();
        bord.x = -30;
        bord.y = -6;
        bord.name = "spel";
        addChild(bord);         

        var c:Class = getDefinitionByName(veg[0]) as Class;
        var instance:Object = new c();
        var mc:MovieClip = MovieClip(instance);
        addChild(mc);
    }
}}  

Screenshot of library

Answer 1

When using getDefinitionByName, you always have to explicitly use the classes in your code.
That means that if you’re using the class which name is defined in veg [0] – “appel” – you have to “force” the compiler to include that class.
Just wrote at the beginning of your code:

 var dummyAppel:appel;

…and do it for all the classes you want to retrieve by their names.
Hope it helps