Freesome - Pete Hobson

Open up your actionscript documentation and find the entry for setInterval…

Scroll right to the bottom, where you get the example

Usage 3: This example uses a method of an object. You must use this syntax when you want to call a method that is defined for an object.
obj = new Object();
obj.interval = function() {
trace("interval function called");
}

setInterval( obj, "interval", 1000 );


obj2 = new Object();
obj2.interval = function(s) {
trace(s);
}
setInterval( obj2, "interval", 1000, "interval function called" );
You must use the second form of the setInterval() syntax to call a method of an object, as follows:
setInterval( obj2, "interval", 1000, "interval function called" );

Ok?

Yeah right...I missed it completely the first time round – In fact what I’ve been doing when using setInterval has been to use something like


_global.myObject = this;
setInterval( function () {_global.myObject.myFunction(), 1000 );

So in effect copying my class into _global and then calling a method from in in-line function. Why? Because ‘this’ when used in the two parameter version of setInterval is undefined.

Obviously it’s a messy way to do things, as you have to realy on the _global variable not being overwritten. However, the third version of setInterval allows you to do something such as

setInterval( this, "interval", 1000, "interval function called" );

from within your class… now setInterval will call your ‘interval’ method of your class, and this will be correctly scoped to the instance…