About ActionScript
ActionScript
is the programming language for the Adobe® Flash® Player and Adobe® AIR™ run-time environments. It enables interactivity,
data handling, and much more in Flash, Flex, and AIR content and
applications.
ActionScript executes in the ActionScript Virtual Machine (AVM),
which is part of Flash Player and AIR. ActionScript code is typically
transformed into bytecode format by a compiler. (
Bytecode
is
a type of programming language that’s written and understood by
computers.) Examples of compilers include the one built in to Adobe® Flash® Professional
and the one that is built in to Adobe® Flash® Builder™ and available
in the Adobe® Flex™ SDK.
The bytecode is embedded in SWF files, which Flash Player and AIR
execute.
ActionScript 3.0 offers a robust programming model that is familiar
to developers with a basic knowledge of object-oriented programming.
Some of the key features of ActionScript 3.0 that improve over previous
ActionScript versions include the following:
-
A new ActionScript Virtual Machine, called AVM2, that
uses a new bytecode instruction set and provides significant performance
improvements
-
A more modern compiler code base that performs deeper optimizations
than previous versions of the compiler
-
An expanded and improved application programming interface
(API), with low-level control of objects and a true object-oriented
model
-
An XML API based on the ECMAScript for XML (E4X) specification
(ECMA-357 edition 2). E4X is a language extension to ECMAScript
that adds XML as a native data type of the language.
-
An event model based on the Document Object Model (DOM) Level
3 Events Specification
Advantages of ActionScript 3.0
ActionScript 3.0 goes beyond the scripting capabilities
of previous versions of ActionScript. It is designed to facilitate
the creation of highly complex applications with large data sets
and object-oriented, reusable code bases. ActionScript 3.0 is not
required for content that runs in Adobe Flash Player. However, it
opens the door to performance improvements that are only available
with the AVM2 (the ActionScript 3.0 virtual machine). ActionScript
3.0 code can execute up to ten times faster than legacy ActionScript
code.
The previous version of ActionScript Virtual Machine, AVM1, executes
ActionScript 1.0 and ActionScript 2.0 code. Flash Player 9 and 10
support AVM1 for backward compatibility.
What’s new in ActionScript 3.0
ActionScript
3.0 contains many classes and features that are similar to ActionScript
1.0 and 2.0. However, ActionScript 3.0 is architecturally and conceptually different
from previous versions of ActionScript. The enhancements in ActionScript
3.0 include new features of the core language and an improved API
that provides increased control of low-level objects.
Core language features
The core language defines the basic building blocks of
the programming language, such as statements, expressions, conditions,
loops, and types. ActionScript 3.0 contains many features that speed
up the development process.
Run-time exceptions
ActionScript 3.0 reports
more error conditions than previous versions of ActionScript. Run-time
exceptions are used for common error conditions, improving the debugging
experience and enabling you to develop applications that handle errors
robustly. Run-time errors can provide stack traces annotated with
source file and line number information, helping you quickly pinpoint
errors.
Run-time types
In ActionScript 3.0, type
information is preserved at run time. This information is used to
perform run-time type checking, improving the system’s type safety. Type
information is also used to represent variables in native machine
representations, which improves performance and reduces memory usage.
By way of comparison, in ActionScript 2.0 type annotations are primarily
a developer aid and all values are dynamically typed at run time.
Sealed classes
ActionScript 3.0 includes
the concept of sealed classes. A sealed class possesses only the
fixed set of properties and methods that are defined at compile
time; additional properties and methods cannot be added. The inability
of changing a class at run time enables stricter compile-time checking,
resulting in more robust programs. It also improves memory usage
by not requiring an internal hash table for each object instance.
Dynamic classes are also possible using the
dynamic
keyword.
All classes in ActionScript 3.0 are sealed by default, but can be
declared to be dynamic with the
dynamic
keyword.
Method closures
ActionScript 3.0 enables
a method closure to automatically remember its original object instance.
This feature is useful for event handling. In ActionScript 2.0, method
closures do not remember what object instance they were extracted from,
leading to unexpected behavior when the method closure is called.
ECMAScript for XML (E4X)
ActionScript
3.0 implements ECMAScript for XML (E4X), recently standardized as ECMA-357.
E4X offers a natural, fluent set of language constructs for manipulating
XML. In contrast to traditional XML-parsing APIs, XML with E4X performs like
a native data type of the language. E4X streamlines the development
of applications that manipulate XML by drastically reducing the
amount of code needed.
To view the ECMA E4X specification,
go to
www.ecma-international.org
.
Regular expressions
ActionScript 3.0 includes
native support for regular expressions so that you can quickly search
for and manipulate strings. ActionScript 3.0 implements support for
regular expressions as they are defined in the ECMAScript (ECMA-262)
edition 3 language specification.
Namespaces
Namespaces are similar to the
traditional access specifiers used to control visibility of declarations
(
public
,
private
,
protected
).
They work as custom access specifiers, which can have names of your
choice. Namespaces are outfitted with a Universal Resource Identifier
(URI) to avoid collisions, and are also used to represent XML namespaces
when you work with E4X.
New primitive types
ActionScript 3.0 contains
three numeric types: Number, int, and uint. Number represents a
double-precision, floating-point number. The int type is a 32-bit signed
integer that lets ActionScript code take advantage of the fast integer math
capabilities of the CPU. The int type is useful for loop counters
and variables where integers are used. The uint type is an unsigned,
32-bit integer type that is useful for RGB color values, byte counts,
and more. In contrast, ActionScript 2.0 only has a single numeric
type, Number.
API features
The APIs in ActionScript 3.0 contain many classes that
allow you to control objects at a low level. The architecture of
the language is designed to be more intuitive than previous versions.
While there are too many classes to cover in detail, some significant
differences are worth noting.
DOM3 event model
Document Object Model
Level 3 event model (DOM3) provides a standard way of generating
and handling event messages. This event model is designed to allow
objects within applications to interact and communicate, maintain
their state, and respond to change. The ActionScript 3.0 event model
is patterned after the World Wide Web Consortium DOM Level 3 Events
Specification. This model provides a clearer and more efficient
mechanism than the event systems available in previous versions
of ActionScript.
Events and error events are located in the
flash.events package. The Flash Professional components and Flex
framework use the same event model, so the event system is unified
across the Flash Platform.
Display list API
The API for accessing
the display list—the tree that contains any visual elements in the
application—consists of classes for working with visual primitives.
The
Sprite class is a lightweight building block, designed to be a base
class for visual elements such as user interface components. The
Shape class represents raw vector shapes. These classes can be instantiated
naturally with the
new
operator and can be dynamically
reparented at any time.
Depth management is automatic. Methods
are provided for specifying and managing the stacking order of objects.
Handling dynamic data and content
ActionScript
3.0 contains mechanisms for loading and handling assets and data in
your application that are intuitive and consistent across the API.
The Loader class provides a single mechanism for loading SWF files
and image assets and provides a way to access detailed information
about loaded content. The URLLoaderclass provides
a separate mechanism for loading text and binary data in data-driven
applications. The Socket class provides a means to read and write binary
data to server sockets in any format.
Low-level data access
Various APIs provide
low-level access to data. For data that is being downloaded, the
URLStream class provides access to data as raw binary data while
it is being downloaded. The ByteArray class lets you optimize reading,
writing, and working with binary data. The sound API provides detailed
control of sound through the SoundChannel and SoundMixer classes.
Security APIs provide information about the security privileges
of a SWF file or loaded content, enabling you to handle security
errors.
Working with text
ActionScript 3.0 contains
a flash.text package for all text-related APIs. The TextLineMetrics
class provides detailed metrics for a line of text within a text
field; it replaces the
TextFormat.getTextExtent()
method
in ActionScript 2.0. The TextField class contains low-level methods
that provide specific information about a line of text or a single
character in a text field. For example, the
getCharBoundaries()
method
returns a rectangle representing the bounding box of a character.
The
getCharIndexAtPoint()
method returns the index
of the character at a specified point. The
getFirstCharInParagraph()
method
returns the index of the first character in a paragraph. Line-level
methods include
getLineLength()
, which returns
the number of characters in a specified line of text, and
getLineText()
,
which returns the text of the specified line. The Font class provides
a means to manage embedded fonts in SWF files.
For even lower-level
control over text, the classes in the flash.text.engine package
make up the Flash Text Engine. This set of classes provide low-level control
over text and are designed for creating text frameworks and components.
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