Dynamic vars MovieClips in AS3 - actionscript-3

Question

Hello I'm trying to do this (in as2 this worked but not in as3) I looked on google for 3 hours, but still don't found a solution (thans for your help) :
import flash.display.MovieClip;
var mcContainer:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
var mcImage0:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
var mcImage1:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
var mcImage2:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
var mcImage3:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
mcImage0.name = "Boy";
mcImage1.name = "Girl";
mcImage2.name = "Woman";
mcImage3.name = "Man";
var ArrayNamesOfMC:Array = new Array();
var i:int = 4;
while(i--) {
ArrayNamesOfMC.push(["mcImage"+i].name);
}
This donsn't work :
ArrayNamesOfMC.push(["mcImage"+i].name);

Answer 1

This is the simple answer to your question:
var mcImage0:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
var mcImage1:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
var mcImage2:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
var mcImage3:MovieClip = new MovieClip();
mcImage0.name = "Boy";
mcImage1.name = "Girl";
mcImage2.name = "Woman";
mcImage3.name = "Man";
var ArrayNamesOfMC:Array = new Array();
var i:int = 3;
while (i >= 0)
{
ArrayNamesOfMC.push(MovieClip(this["mcImage" + i]).name);
i--;
}// end while
The following may not be relevant in your case as I'm not quite sure what the purpose of your application is, but this is probably a better approach:
var sprites:Vector.<Sprite> = new Vector.<Sprite>();
var names:Vector.<String> = new <String>["Boy", "Girl", "Woman", "Man"];
for (var i:uint = 0; i < names.length; i++)
{
var sprite:Sprite = new Sprite();
sprite.name = names[i];
sprites.push(sprite);
}// end for
Disregard this if it is not applicable in your case.

Answer 2

this should do the trick:
var _movieClip:MovieClip = ("mcImage" + i) as MovieClip;
ArrayNamesOfMC.push(_movieClip.name);

Answer 3

Taurayi's answer is an interesting technique that I didn't know about.
Personally I would recommend restructuring your code to put all the movieclips in an array, like so:
var mcImages:Array = new Array();
for (var i = 0; i < 4; i++) {
mcImages.push(new MovieClip);
}
mcImages[0].name = "Boy";
trace(mcImages[0].name);
Incidentally, your while loop was constructed incorrectly. You need a condition in the parentheses and then do the decrement inside the loop. But with all your movieclips in an array then you can use this much simpler approach to loop through all of them:
for each (var mc in mcImages) {
trace(mc.name);
}