Question

The Ancestor class does, indeed, have a function called (for the sake of example) “foo”.

public static function callAncestorStaticMethod() : void
{
    var ancestorClassName : String = getQualifiedSuperclassName(Descendant);
    var ancestorClass : Class = Class(getDefinitionByName(ancestorClassName));

    ancestorClass.foo();   //  <---- runtime error here: foo is not a function
}

Examining ancestorClass finds it an Object with no visible properties (ancestorClass.prototype does not either).

So, how do I call a static function on a class when I only have its name as a string at runtime ?

Answer 1

I was able to call a static function in the superclass using the following code:

var c:ChildClass = new ChildClass();
var s:String = getQualifiedSuperclassName(c);
var cl:Class = getDefinitionByName(s) as Class;

cl.foo.call();  
//cl["foo"].call();

A Class object has all of the static properties and methods of the Class, so this should be reliable. cl.foo returns a Function object that you can then .call().