Finally, I managed to release Phlocks - Physical blocks. It is a casual flash puzzle game using the Box2D physics engine. I started playing with the engine in the beginning of this year. End of January I came up with the first version of the game.

This weekend finally, I found some time to pick up that project again and finish it. Ok, try it out yourselves at the following little sub-page:

http://www.weltenkonstrukteur.de/games/phlocks/

Actionscript uses a rather loose throw convention, since you can throw nearly everything - it does not have to be an exception. The throw statement thus looks like this:

throw expression

According to that, the following code is perfectly valid and outputs “Test” :

public function Main()
{
	try
	{
		throwSomething();
	}
	catch ( e:String )
	{
		trace(e);
	}
}
 
private function throwSomething():void
{
	throw new String("Test");
}

However, this is not the normal case. In actionscript you should always throw Error Objects. So, ideally above’s code should be look like this:

public function Main()
{
	try
	{
		throwSomething();
	}
	catch ( e:Error )
	{
		trace(e.message);
	}
}
 
private function throwSomething():void
{
	throw new Error("Test");
}

Of course, you could write your own exception classes which derives from the Error class like you would do it in other languages with the Exception class. Apart from that difference, Actionscript’s Exception handling is pretty straight-forward and sticks to the general paradigm.

The usage of arrays in actionscript is nearly the same like the in other programming languages. However, there are some fine technical intricacies to point out.

First of all, the elements of an array in actionscript can be of different types. That means, you can put various types of elements in the same array. Following small example illustrates that:

public function Main()
{
	var arr:Array = [ 1, "Two", { id:3 } ];
 
	for (var i:uint = 0; i < arr.length; i++)
	{
		trace(typeof(arr[i]));
	}
	// Will result in the following output:
	// number
	// string
	// object
}

Above’s code extract creates an array called arr which holds three elements. All elements are of a different type.The element at index 0 is of type Number, index 1 is of type String and finally index 2 is an object.

Another special thing about arrays in actionscript is that the memory of arrays are allocated automatically. That means, that you do not have to care about reserving memory if you want to add elements e.g. So theroretically each array has an unlimited amount of elements. Accessing an element which actually has never been created does not resolve in an error like in other programming languages (Array index out of bounce). Refer to the following example:

// Create an array which holds 2 elements
var arr:Array = new Array(2);
 
// Now try to access the third element
// This does not result in an error like in
// other programming languages
trace(arr[2]);

Although above’s code creates an array which should hold only 2 elements, we still can try to access the third element without retrieving an error. The third element is simply undefined (i.e. equals null). Keeping this in mind, the length property returns actually the index of the last used element instead of the real amount of elements of the array. The final piece of code demonstrates the return values of length:

var arr:Array = new Array();
trace(arr.length);
arr[0] = 1;
trace(arr.length);
arr[100] = 2;
trace(arr.length);
// This code outputs:
// 0
// 1
// 101

When you create a variable in ActionScript you normally add its type, e.g.

var age:uint;

Whenever you assign to that variable a value of another type the compiler will throw type mismatch errors.

// This will result in a type mismatch error
age = -10;

Actionscript provides untyped variables. You can set them explicitly with the datatype “*“, e.g.:

var anything:*;
anything = 10;
anything = "Test";
anything = new Array();

Above code will not throw any type mismatch errors, because the variable is declared as an untyped variable. So you can assign values of any kind to it.

From my personal point of view however, you should avoid using untyped variables whenever you can.

Nested functions are functions which are defined inside a method or in other function. They are only accessible in the method/function in which they are defined. Once there is a definition of a function inside a method it does not matter if you call that nested function before its definition or after it. It works in both cases.

Here is a short example of a nested function.

private function doCalculation():void
{
	for (var i:uint; i < 10; i++)
	{
		// Do some serious calculation
		nestedLog("Calculation " + i + " done");
	}
 
	// Nested function
	function nestedLog(logTxt:String):void
	{
		trace(logTxt);
	}
}

The function defined in line 10 is only accessible in the scope of the method doCalculation(). Therefore, it is illegal to add any control access modifiers (public, private, protected) to the function.

Nested functions may be used to store some method-specific subroutines.