User Guide

144 Chapter 5: ActionScript Core Language Elements

Usage 3: The following example deletes an object property:

var my_array:Array = new Array();

my_array[0] = "abc"; // my_array.length == 1

my_array[1] = "def"; // my_array.length == 2

my_array[2] = "ghi"; // my_array.length == 3

// my_array[2] is deleted, but Array.length is not changed

delete my_array[2];

trace(my_array.length); // output: 3

trace(my_array); // output: abc,def,undefined

Usage 4: The following example shows the behavior of delete on object references:

var ref1:Object = new Object();

ref1.name = "Jody";

// copy the reference variable into a new variable

// and delete ref1

ref2 = ref1;

delete ref1;

trace("ref1.name "+ref1.name); //output: undefined

trace("ref2.name "+ref2.name); //output: Jody

If ref1 had not been copied into ref2, the object would have been deleted when ref1 was

deleted because there would be no references to it. If you delete

ref2, there are no references to

the object; it will be destroyed, and the memory it used becomes available.