Question

Is the second better than the first?

FIRST:

var count:int=myArray.length;
for(var i:uint=0;i<count;i++)
{
   var str:String=myArray[i].label;
   var somethingElse:Class=...;
   var andAnotherThing:MyInstance=new MyInstance(somethingElse);
   ...
}

SECOND:

var count:int=myArray.length;
var str:String;
var somethingElse:Class;
var andAnotherThing:MyInstance;
for(var i:uint=0;i<count;i++)
{
   str=myArray[i].label;
   somethingElse=...;
   andAnotherThing=new MyInstance(somethingElse);
   ...
}

Thank you.

Answer 1

In Actionscript and Javascript, variables are scoped to the function, not the block. It’s called variable hoisting.

ActionScript 3.0 Variables

An interesting implication of the lack of block-level scope is that
you can read or write to a variable before it is declared, as long as
it is declared before the function ends. This is because of a
technique called hoisting , which means that the compiler moves all
variable declarations to the top of the function.

So effectively your code will behave like this regardless of where you declare your variables within the function:

var count:int;
var str:String;
var i:uint;
var somethingElse:Class;
var andAnotherThing:MyInstance;

count = myArray.length;
for(i=0;i<count;i++)
{
   str=myArray[i].label;
   somethingElse = ...;
   andAnotherThing = new MyInstance(somethingElse);
   ...
}

Nevertheless, I still prefer to declare my variables within the blocks that use them primarily for maintenance reasons and general clarity.