Removing Everything from a Display Container

Ben — Mon, 26 May 2008 00:28:24 +0000

I ran into this problem and couldn’t figure out what was going on because I fail miserably:

// doesn't work because as this code executes numChildren is decreasing;
// it ends up not removing everything
for(var i:Number=0; i < numChildren; i++){
removeChildAt(i);
}

The solution:

while( numChildren > 0 ){
removeChildAt(0);
}

This expression is useful for deleting things from the bottom of the displayList up.

Sifting Through the Display List to Delete Things

Ben — Mon, 19 May 2008 14:31:51 +0000

Hah, it’s a pretty specific case … but this checks the last item of the display list and removes it if it partially matches (indexOf) the name on the display list item. This requires that the display list item to be given a name.

var myClip:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
myClip.name = "thenameofit";

if( getChildAt(numChildren-1).name.indexOf("thenameofit") > -1 ){
removeChildAt(numChildren-1)
}

Yeah. Heh. So I’m keeping this code around, why? It could be used in the program I’m writing now, but it’s not nearly flexible enough as this, which loops through the display list and removes any child with containing a partially match of “deleteme”. Much more flexible, but also more intensive in a complex movie?

for( var i:int=0; i < this.numChildren; i++ ){
if( getChildAt(i).name.indexOf('deleteme') > -1 ){
removeChildAt(i);
}
}

benwatts.ca » displaylist

Removing Everything from a Display Container

Sifting Through the Display List to Delete Things