User Guide

48 Chapter 2: ActionScript Language Reference
. (dot)
Availability
Flash Player 4.
Usage
object.property_or_method
instancename.variable
instancename.childinstance
instancename.childinstance.variable
Parameters
object
An instance of a class. The object can be an instance of any of the built-in ActionScript
classes or a custom class. This parameter is always to the left of the dot (.) operator.
property_or_method The name of a property or method associated with an object. All the
valid methods and properties for the built-in classes are listed in the method and property
summary tables for that class. This parameter is always to the right of the dot (.) operator.
instancename The instance name of a movie clip.
childinstance A movie clip instance that is a child of, or nested in, another movie clip.
variable A variable on the Timeline of the movie clip instance name to the left of the dot
(
.) operator.
Returns
The method, property or movie clip named on the right side of the dot.
Description
Operator; used to navigate movie clip hierarchies to access nested (child) movie clips, variables, or
properties. The dot operator is also used to test or set the properties of an object or top-level class,
execute a method of an object or top-level class, or create a data structure.
For more information, see “Operator precedence and associativity” in Using ActionScript in Flash.
Example
The following example identifies the current value of the variable hairColor in the movie clip
person_mc:
person_mc.hairColor
The Flash 4 authoring environment did not support dot syntax, but Flash MX 2004 files
published for Flash Player 4 can use the dot operator. The preceding example is equivalent to the
following (deprecated) Flash 4 syntax:
/person_mc:hairColor
The following example creates a new movie clip within the _root scope. Then a text field is
created inside the movie clip called
container_mc. The text field’s autoSize property is set to
true and then populated with the current date.