User Guide

522 Chapter 2: ActionScript Language Reference

MovieClip.getInstanceAtDepth()

Availability

Flash Player 7.

Usage

my_mc.getInstanceAtDepth(depth:Number) : MovieClip

Parameters

depth

An integer that specifies the depth level to query.

Returns

A reference to the MovieClip instance located at the specified depth, or undefined if there is no

movie clip at that depth.

Description

Method; lets you determine if a particular depth is already occupied by a movie clip. You can use

this method before using

MovieClip.attachMovie(), MovieClip.duplicateMovieClip(), or

MovieClip.createEmptyMovieClip() to determine if the depth parameter you want to pass to

any of these methods already contains a movie clip. For more information, see “Managing movie

clip depths” in Using ActionScript in Flash.

You can extend the methods and event handlers of the MovieClip class by creating a subclass. For

more information, see “Assigning a class to a movie clip symbol” in Using ActionScript in Flash.

Example

The following example displays the depth occupied by the logo_mc movie clip instance in the

Output panel:

this.createEmptyMovieClip("logo_mc", 1);

logo_mc.loadMovie("http://www.macromedia.com/devnet/mx/blueprint/articles/

nielsen/spotlight_jnielsen.jpg");

trace(this.getInstanceAtDepth(1)); // output: _level0.logo_mc