Unable to access MCs via references

Question

I have used AS 2 before, this is my first AS 3 project. I need MCs to be added dynamically inside container objects. After adding them, I am unable to access them via direct referencement. I can do this with the getChildByName() method but this is tiresome. Also, I noticed that the instances do not appear in the variables panel with their given name at the expected parent/child path but instead they all appear with their import variable names under "this". (in the example below, I have "cont" and "mc1" both showing under "this"). Here is my code :

var cont:Sprite = new Sprite() ; 
cont.name = "Container" ; 
addChild(cont) ; 

var mc1:MovieClip = new MovieClip() ; 
mc1.name="mc" ; 
cont.addChild(mc1) ;

var ref1 = getChildByName("Container") ; 
trace(ref1.name) ;                // returns "Container"
trace(mc1.parent.name) ;          // returns "Container"
var ref = ref1.getChildByName("mc") ; 
ref.x = 100 ;  
trace(ref.x) ;                       // returns 100
trace(ref1.mc1.x ) ;                  // DOES NOT WORK
trace(Container.mc.name) ;           // DOES NOT WORK

Am I missing something ? Why am I unable to access my child MC via Container.mc ? Thank you for your help, Quentin

Answer 1

For the most part I got this covered here: Object Members vs Instance Names.

In order to access children via dot notation syntax, you need to declare these children as members of the container object. Something like that:

var C:Sprite = new Sprite;
C.name = "Container";
addChild(C);

// Add it also as a member of current context.
this.co = C;

var M:MovieClip = new MovieClip; 
M.name="InnerMC";
C.addChild(M);

// Add it also as a member of C.
C.mc = M;

trace(this.co.name); // Container
trace(this.co.mc.name); // InnerMC

Once more: member names are different from instance names. After the script above your display list hierarchy is following:

this (name: ?)
    └ co (name: Container)
        └ mc (name: InnerMC)