ActionScript for Flash MX: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition

duplicateMovieClip() Global Function

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ActionScript Language Reference

See Also

“The delete Operator,” in Chapter 5

duplicateMovieClip() Global Function

create a copy of a movie clip

Flash 4

duplicateMovieClip(target, newName, depth)

Arguments

target A string indicating the path to the movie clip to duplicate (known as the seed

clip). Nested clips can be referred to with dot syntax, as in duplicateMovieClip

("_root.myClip", "myClip2", 0). Because a movie clip reference is converted to

a path when used in a string context,

target can also be a movie clip object

reference, as in duplicateMovieClip(_root.myClip, "myClip2", 0).

newName A string that becomes the instance name of the duplicated clip. The string

used must adhere to the rules for creating an identifier outlined in “Identi-

fiers” in Chapter 15.

depth An integer, between –16384 and 1048575 (inclusive), specifying the depth on

which to place the duplicated clip inside

target’s parent. Higher depths

obscure lower depths, so a depth of 6 is in front of 5, which is in front of 4,

and so on. Depths above –1 are reserved for dynamically generated content.

Therefore, in most cases, you should use a depth between 0 and 1048575

with duplicateMovieClip(). However, when creating dynamic content that

you want to appear beneath all author-time