Save items(MovieClips) and dynamically create them - actionscript-3

Question

I made an invetory in AS3 which allows me to put items on slots in a closet, or in slots in the inventory. It completely works, but there is one problem.
In the game you are supposed to be able to buy new items and add them to the closet. I want this to be saved so that it is available the next time you play.
To do this, I want to save an Array to a SharedObject, then create the items dynamically from the array.
Right now I'm using the old fashioned hard coding for each object;
Itemwrench = new WrenchItem();
Itemwrench.x = par.toolCloset.kast_1.slotTC1.x + 400;
Itemwrench.y = par.toolCloset.kast_1.slotTC1.y + 245;
Itemwrench.gotoAndStop(2);
Itemwrench.name = "slotTC1";
Itemwrench.TC = 1;
NotinventoryParentTC.addChild(Itemwrench);
However, to add them dynamically I'd have to use getChildByName before it is added to the stage, which is not possible.
If possible could you show me how to do this correctly?
The information you need:
-The items are all stored in a closet with slots(Instances in the closet movieclip).
-The items need to get the name slotTC + the integer in a for loop.
-The name of the items change according to the slot number they are assigned when you take them out of the closet or put them back into the closet.
for(var i:int = 0; i < itemsInTC.length - itemsInTC.indexOf(e.currentTarget.name) - 1; i++)
{
nextSlotTC = "slotTC" + (itemsInTC.indexOf(e.currentTarget.name) +2 +i);
trace("Next Slot: " + nextSlotTC);
TempStrTC = "slotTC" + (itemsInTC.indexOf(e.currentTarget.name) +1 +i).toString();
trace("temp string: " + TempStrTC);
NotinventoryParentTC.getChildByName(nextSlotTC).x =
par.toolCloset.kast_1.getChildByName(TempStrTC).x + 400;
NotinventoryParentTC.getChildByName(nextSlotTC).y =
par.toolCloset.kast_1.getChildByName(TempStrTC).y + 245;
if(Boolean(NotinventoryParentTC.getChildByName(nextSlotTC)))
{
NotinventoryParentTC.getChildByName(nextSlotTC).name = TempStrTC;
}
}
This way I assign a new name and place them in the slot with the new name they received.
So now my question:
How do make it so that you can save the items to a shared object so that they are in the closet the next time you play the game.
Sorry for the long question.
Thanks in advance,
Milan.

Answer 1

You cannot directly store a DisplayObject in a SharedObject, as it contains memory links which will not be valid if you load such an object. A comon way to work around this is to store a significant data portion of that object. For example, you devise a following structure:
class SlotStructure {
public var slotID:int;
public var itemID:int;
public var itemName:String;
public var itemParameters:Array; // stuff simple types here
}
Then, for each of your items in inventory, you generate a SlotStructure object describing a particular inventory object. For your wrench it could look like this:
var ss:SlotStructure=new SlotStructure();
ss.slotID=1;
ss.itemID=getID(item); // assuming a function that returns a type of an item
ss.itemName=item.name;
ss.itemParameters=new Array();
for (var param:String in item) ss.itemParameters.push({name:param,value:item[param]});
Then you store an array of these into your SharedObject. To retrieve an inventory from a SharedObject you do:
public static const
registerClassAlias("SlotStructure",SlotStructure); // to be able to typecast from SO
for (var i:int=0;i<slots.length;i++) {
var ss:SlotStructure=slots[i];
var item:Item=new getClassFromID(ss.itemID)(); // a function that returns class
// say 1 - wrench, 2 - short sword, 3 - long sword, etc, one type=one ID
for each (var o:Object in ss.itemParameters)
item[o.name]=o.value;
placeIntoSlot(item,ss.slotID); // this does manipulation with x&y and display
}
A function getClassByID() might look like this:
private static const CLASSES:Array=
[StoneItem,WrenchItem,ShortswordItem,LongswordItem,...];
// manually stuff all your items in this!
public function getClassByID(id:int):Class {
return CLASSES[id];
}
The entire solution can be tailored to particular task, for example, in my game I have gems, that differ by location, type, size and score, so I store just these values and then I create new gems, set location, type, size and score with one function that sets all the other relevant parameters of that gem to align with stored info, and call it after making a gem with new Gem(). Your items might too be only worthy of a class name and ID in the class table, so store these with slot numbers and create objects that will have all their properties already set.