Question

I’m currently maintaining some flex code and noticed very many functions which are declared like:

private function exampleFunc():void {     .... } 

These functions are in the global scope, and aren’t part of any specific class, so it’s a bit unclear to me what effect declaring them as private would have. What restrictions does the ‘private’ qualifier have for functions like this?

Answer 1

The actionscript functions that are included in your mxmlc code will we available as a part of your mxmlc component, which behind the scenes is compiled into a class. Therefore marking them as private makes them inaccessible.

Here is an example to make that clear, say you have the following component, we’ll call it FooBox:

  <!-- FooBox.mxml --> <mx:Box xmlns:mx='http://www.macromedia.com/2003/mxml'>     <mx:Script><![CDATA[         private function foo():void {             lbl.text = 'foo';         }         public function bar():void {             lbl.text = 'bar';         }     ]]></mx:Sctipt>     <mx:Label id='lbl'> </mx:Box>   

I can now add FooBox to my application, and use it’s functions:

  <mx:Application  xmlns:mx='http://www.macromedia.com/2003/mxml'  xmlns:cc='controls.*' >      <mx:Script><![CDATA[        private function init():void {             fbox.foo(); // opps, this function is unaccessible.             fbox.bar(); // this is ok...        }     ]]></mx:Sctipt>     <cc:FooBox id='fbox' /> </mx:Application>  

If the actionscript functions are included in your Main Application file, the I think you can call the functions from an child control through the Application.application object, something like:

  Application.application.bar();   

if the bar function was placed in the main mxmlc code.