MACROMEDIA FLASH MX 2004 - ACTIONSCRIPT, Reference Manual

Page: 649 / 816

String class 649
String class
Availability
Flash Player 5 (became a native object in Flash Player 6, which improved
performance significantly).
Description
The String class is a wrapper for the string primitive data type, and provides methods and
properties that let you manipulate primitive string value types. You can convert the value of any
object into a string using the
String()
function.
All of the methods of the String class, except for
concat()
,
fromCharCode()
,
slice()
, and
substr()
, are generic. This means the methods themselves call
this.toString()
before
performing their operations, and you can use these methods with other non-String objects.
Because all string indexes are zero-based, the index of the last character for any string
x
is
x.length - 1
.
You can call any of the methods of the String class using the constructor method
new String
or
using a string literal value. If you specify a string literal, the ActionScript interpreter automatically
converts it to a temporary String object, calls the method, and then discards the temporary String
object. You can also use the
String.length
property with a string literal.
Do not confuse a string literal with a String object. In the following example, the first line of code
creates the string literal
s1
, and the second line of code creates the String object
s2
.
s1 = "foo"
s2 = new String("foo")
Use string literals unless you specifically need to use a String object.
Method summary for the String class
Method Description
String.charAt()
Returns the character at a specific location in a string.
String.charCodeAt()
Returns the value of the character at the specified index as a 16-bit integer
between 0 and 65535.
String.concat() Combines the text of two strings and returns a new string.
String.fromCharCode() Returns a string made up of the characters specified in the parameters.
String.indexOf() Returns the position of the first occurrence of a specified substring.
String.lastIndexOf() Returns the position of the last occurrence of a specified substring.
String.slice() Extracts a section of a string and returns a new string.
String.split() Splits a String object into an array of strings by separating the string
into substrings.
String.substr() Returns a specified number of characters in a string, beginning at a
specified location.
String.substring()
Returns the characters between two indexes in a string.