Question

I’ve been using Object as a way to have a generic associative array (map/dictionary) since AS3/Flex seems to be very limited in this regard. But I really don’t like it coming from a C++/Java/C# background. Is there a better way, some standard class I’ve not come across… is this even considered good/bad in AS3?

Answer 1

Yes, Actionscript uses Object as a generic associative container and is considered the standard way of doing this.

There is also a Dictionary class available, flash.utils.Dictionary.

The difference is that Dictionary can use any value as a key, including objects, while Object uses string keys. For most uses, Object is preferred as it is faster and covers the majority of use cases.

You can see the details on Object here: http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/Object.html
and Dictionary here: http://livedocs.adobe.com/flash/9.0/ActionScriptLangRefV3/flash/utils/Dictionary.html
and the differences between them here: http://livedocs.adobe.com/flex/3/html/help.html?content=10_Lists_of_data_4.html