Importing an SWF file in Actionscript 3

Question

I have an external SWF file that I need to load at runtime. However, contained inside the SWF is a single MovieClip - in fact, it is a custom class that extends MovieClip. This custom class has its own instance variables and methods. So, there is an AS class that this MovieClip is linked to.

However, when I load the SWF file in the normal way (i.e. with Loader and URLRequest), I cannot access the methods and variables of my custom class. Flash just thinks that it is of type MovieClip, and I have no access to the properties of my custom class.

All that remains is the graphics inside the movie clip.

Does anyone know what's going on here?

Answer 1

try casting it:

loadedMC.getChildAt(0) as YourCustomClass

You can even set up an interface, say IYourCustomClass, which can be implemented by YourCustomClass and import the interface in you main movie, to save some bytes. Then you code would be:

loadedMC.getChildAt(0) as IYourCustomClass -- this provides access to all the methods and getters/setters.