I cant remove child of this movie clip upon clicking the back button to go function goHomePage (evt:Event):void{ - actionscript-3

Question

Help. I need to remove the newContainer(this is a movie clip) after clicking the back button to go back to homepage.
But it just loads the homepage and the newContainer is still there. :( where did i go wrong?
import flash.events.MouseEvent;
import flash.events.Event;
import fl.motion.MotionEvent;
import flash.net.URLVariables;
import flash.display.MovieClip;
import flashx.textLayout.elements.Configuration;
var ctr:int = 0;
var now:Date = new Date();
var myurl:String = "http://localhost:8888/eventspictures/getdata.php";
var scriptLoader:URLLoader = new URLLoader();
var scriptRequest:URLRequest = new URLRequest();
var newContainer:MovieClip;
scriptRequest.url = myurl + "?ck=" + now.getTime();
scriptLoader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, handleLoadSuccess);
scriptLoader.addEventListener(IOErrorEvent.IO_ERROR, handleError);
scriptRequest.method = URLRequestMethod.POST;
scriptLoader.load(scriptRequest);
function handleLoadSuccess(evt:Event):void
{
for (var j:Number = 0; j <4; j++)
{
var newContainer:MovieClip = new con();
newContainer.name = String(ctr);
newContainer.y = j*80 +65;
newContainer.x= 16;
stage.addChild(newContainer);
var variables:URLVariables = new URLVariables(evt.target.data);
trace(variables.output);
var parse:String = variables.output;
var parsed:Array = parse.split("<|>");
var tab:String = ' ';
var eventname:String = '';
var date:String='';
var slotsleft:String='';
// different variable names to assign to different column names(etc; eventname, date, slotsleft)
// loop through.. start from O
for (var i:Number = 0; i<parsed.length-1; i++)
{
trace(parsed[i]);
var item:String = parsed[i];
var itemarray:Array = item.split(",");
eventname += itemarray[2] + tab + "<br>";
date += itemarray[3] + tab;
slotsleft += itemarray[4] + tab;
trace(eventname);
newContainer.eventname_txt.htmlText = eventname;
newContainer.date_txt.htmlText= date;
newContainer.slotsleft_txt.htmlText=slotsleft;
}
}
//slotsleft_txt.x = 270;
}
function handleError(evt:IOErrorEvent):void
{
}
backbutton_mc.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK, goHomePage);
function goHomePage (evt:Event):void{
gotoAndPlay("dashboard");
removeChild(newContainer);
}
stop();

Answer 1

In your function handleLoadSuccess() you have a loop that creates 4 MovieClip's and adds them to the stage.
But in your goHomePage() function you only try to remove one object from the stage. It turns out this object is probably null in your example (trying to remove an object that is null should generate an error if you are using the debug Flash player).
The reason it is probably null is because you have defined two variables named newContainer in your code: one is declared at the beginning of the script, and the second one inside the function handleLoadSuccess() (because you are using the keyword var on each line).
The variable created inside the function only exists while that function is executing. The variable created outside the function never seems to receive a value.
Two approaches you can use:
Keep track of the things you add to the stage, by putting them in an Array:
Replace the newContainer variable that is outside the function with an Array called containers:
var containers:Array = [];
In the function handleLoadSuccess(), when you add each MovieClip to the stage, also add them to the containers array:
stage.addChild(newContainer);
containers.push(newContainer);
Finally in the function goHomePage() iterate over the containers array to remove each MovieClip:
for (var j:int = 0; j < containers.length; j++)
{
stage.removeChild( containers[j] );
}
// reset the containers array so it's empty for the next time
// and to remove the references to the MovieClips (to prevent a memory leak)
containers=[];
Blindly remove everything from the stage
If this is accetpable, it is much easier. Just iterate backwards over the children of the stage in your goHomePage() function:
for (var j:int = stage.numChildren; j >= 1; j--)
{
stage.removeChildAt(j - 1);
}