The following reference list contains important terms that you will encounter in this chapter:
- Attribute: A characteristic assigned to a class element (such as a property or method) in the class definition. Attributes are commonly used to define whether the property or method will be available for access by code in other parts of the program. For example, private and public are attributes. A private method can be called only by code within the class, while a public method can be called by any code in the program.
- Class: The definition of the structure and behavior of objects of a certain type (like a template or blueprint for objects of that data type).
- Class hierarchy: The structure of multiple related classes, specifying which classes inherit functionality from other classes.
- Constructor: A special method you can define in a class, which is called when an instance of the class is created. A constructor is commonly used to specify default values or otherwise perform setup operations for the object.
- Data type: The type of information that a particular variable can store. In general, data type means the same thing as class.
- Dot operator: The period sign (.), which in ActionScript (and many other programming languages) is used to indicate that a name refers to a child element of an object (such as a property or method). For instance, in the expression myObject.myProperty, the dot operator indicates that the term myProperty is referring to some value that is an element of the object named myObject.
- Enumeration: A set of related constant values, grouped together for convenience as
- properties of a single class.
- Inheritance: The OOP mechanism that allows one class definition to include all the
- functionality of a different class definition (and generally add to that functionality).
- Instance: An actual object created in a program.
- Namespace: Essentially a custom attribute, allowing more refined control over which code
- can access other code.