| Object.toString( ) Method | Flash 5 |
| the value of the object, as a string | | Returns An internally defined string that describes or otherwise represents the object. Description The toString( ) method returns a string description for someObject. The ECMA-262 specification states that, by default, Object.toString( ) should return the expression: "[object " + class + "]" where class is the internally defined name of the class to which someObject belongs. In practice, some ActionScript classes overwrite the default toString( ) method of Object in order to provide more meaningful information about each instance of the class. For those classes that don't provide a custom toString( ) method, ActionScript does not provide the individual class name. So, the default toString( ) method for instances of most classes returns: [object Object] The ActionScript interpreter automatically invokes the toString( ) method whenever someObject is used in a string context. For example: x = new Object(); trace(x); // Displays: "[object Object]" We can implement a custom toString( ) method when constructing our own classes. For example, the Date.toString( ) method returns the date and time; the Array.toString( ) method returns a comma-separated list of array elements; and the Number.toString( ) method returns a string version of the number. Example This example shows how to provide a custom toString( ) method for the Ball class that we created in Chapter 12: // Make the Ball constructor function Ball (radius, color, xPosition, yPosition) { this.radius = radius; this.color = color; this.xPosition = xPosition; this.yPosition = yPosition; } // Add a custom toString() method Ball.prototype.toString = function () { return "A ball with the radius " + this.radius; }; // Create a new Ball object myBall = new Ball(6, 0x00FF00, 145, 200); // Now check myBall's string value trace(myBall); // Displays: "A ball with the radius 6" See Also Array.toString( ), Date.toString( ), Number.toString( ), Object.valueOf( ) | 
