T-W > with

with

Syntax

with (object) {
statement(s);
}

Arguments

object An instance of an ActionScript object or movie clip.

statement(s) An action or group of actions enclosed in curly braces.

Description

Action; temporarily changes the scope (or target path) used for evaluating expressions and actions in the statement(s). After the with action executes, the scope chain is restored to its original state.

The object becomes the context in which the properties, variables, and functions are read. For example, if object is myArray, and two of the properties specified are length and concat, those properties are automatically read as myArray.length and myArray.concat. In another example, if object is state.california, it is as if any actions or statements inside the with action were called from inside the california instance.

To find the value of an identifier in the statement(s), ActionScript starts at the beginning of the scope chain specified by the object and searches for the identifier at each level of the scope chain, in a specific order.

The scope chain used by the with action to resolve identifiers starts with the first item in the following list and continues to the last, as follows:

object referenced by innermost with action
object referenced by outermost with action
Activation object (A temporary object that is automatically created when a function is called that holds the local variables called in the function.)
Movie clip containing currently executing script
Global object (predefined objects such as Math, String)

In Flash 5 the with action replaces the deprecated tellTarget action. You are encouraged to use with instead of tellTarget because it is a standard ActionScript extension to the ECMA-262 standard. The principal difference between the with and tellTarget actions is that with takes a reference to a movie clip or other object as its argument, while tellTarget takes a target path string identifying a movie clip, and cannot be used to target objects.

To set a variable inside a with action, the variable must have been delared outside the with action or you must enter the full path to the Timeline on which you want the variable to live. If you set a variable in a with action without having declared it, the with action will look for the value according to the scope chain. If the variable doesn't already exist, the new value will be set on the Timeline from which the with action was called.

Example

The following example sets the x and y properties of the someOtherMovieClip instance, and then instructs someOtherMovieClip to go to frame 3 and stop:

with (someOtherMovieClip) {
	_x = 50;
	_y = 100;
	gotoAndStop(3);
}

The following code snippet is how you would write the preceding code without using a with action:

someOtherMovieClip._x = 50;
someOtherMovieClip._y = 100;
someOtherMovieClip.gotoAndStop(3);

This code could also be written using the tellTarget action:

tellTarget ("someOtherMovieClip") {
	_x = 50;
	_y = 100;
	gotoAndStop(3);
}

The with action is useful for accessing multiple items in a scope chain list simultaneously. In the following example, the built-in Math object is placed at the front of the scope chain. Setting Math as a default object resolves the identifiers cos, sin, and PI to Math.cos, Math.sin, and Math.PI, respectively. The identifiers a, x, y, and r are not methods or properties of the Math object, but since they exist in the object activation scope of the function polar, they resolve to the corresponding local variables.

function polar(r){
	var a, x, y
	with (Math) {
		a = PI * r * r
		x = r * cos(PI) 
		y = r * sin(PI/2)
}
trace("area = " +a)
trace("x = " + x)
trace("y = " + y)
}

You can use nested with actions to access information in multiple scopes. In the following example, the instance fresno and the instance salinas are children of the instance california. The statement sets the _alpha values of fresno and salinas without changing the _alpha value of california.

with (california){
	with (fresno){
		_alpha = 20;
	}
	with (salinas){
		_alpha = 40;
	}
}

See also

tellTarget