ActionScript: The Definitive Guide

Name

String.split( ) Method — convert a string into a series of array elements

Availability

Flash 5

Synopsis

string.split(delimiter)

Arguments

delimiter

The character or series of characters at which to break string when forming elements of the new array.

Returns

An array whose elements contain the substrings formed by breaking string into segments demarcated by delimiter.

Description

The split( ) method breaks a string into substrings, assigns those substrings to the elements of an array, and returns that array. Contiguous occurrences of delimiter without intervening characters result in empty elements. For example, the following code:

owners = "terry,doug,,,jon";
ownersArray = owners.split(",");

assigns the following elements to ownersArray (elements 2 and 3 contain undefined):

0: terry
1: doug
2: 
3: 
4: jon

The split( ) method is typically used to convert a string received from a CGI script or text file into an array for further manipulation. It is also useful when parsing the parameters of an asfunction call from an HMTL text field <A> tag, which can pass only one string argument to a function. See Section 18.5.14 in Chapter 18, for example code. Common delimiters include the comma and the Tab character.

Example

Suppose we store a list of names in a text file named names.txt. Each name is separated from the others by a Tab character, as implied by the whitespace shown:

owners=terry    doug    jon

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

this.loadVariables("names.txt");

After ...