ActionScript for Flash MX: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition

String.substr() Method

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On frame 1 of our movie, we load the names.txt file into our movie:

this.loadVariables("names.txt");

After ensuring that names.txt has fully loaded (see loadVariables()), we split the loaded

owners variable into an array:

splitString = String.fromCharCode(9); // Assign the Tab character to splitString

ownersArray = owners.split(splitString);

trace(ownersArray[1]); // Displays: "doug"

Note that in Flash 5 split() can take a long time to execute with large bodies of text; it is

considerably faster in Flash 6. If performance is a problem, break your data into manage-

able portions or consider using XML instead. See the XML class.

Bugs

In Flash 5, using the empty string as a delimiter adds all of string to the first element of the

array being generated. According to ECMA-262, an empty string delimiter should cause

string to be broken at each character. Similarly, multicharacter delimiters are not recog-

nized by Flash 5 and cause all of

string to be assigned to the first element of the returned

array. These bugs are fixed in Flash Player 6.

See Also

Array.join(); “The split() function,” in Chapter 4

String.substr() Method

extract a substring from a string, based on a starting position and length

Flash 5

string.substr(startIndex, length