A type conversion is said to occur when a value is transformed into a value of a different data type. Type conversions can be either implicit or explicit. Implicit conversion, which is also called coercion, is sometimes performed by Flash Player at run time. For example, if the value 2 is assigned to a variable of the Boolean data type, Flash Player converts the value 2 to the Boolean value true before assigning the value to the variable. Explicit conversion, which is also called casting, occurs when your code instructs the compiler to treat a variable of one data type as if it belongs to a different data type. When primitive values are involved, casting actually converts values from one data type to another. To cast an object to a different type, you wrap the object name in parentheses and precede it with the name of the new type. For example, the following code takes a Boolean value and casts it to an integer: Continue reading →

The ActionScript 3.0 defines diverse types of generally used data. A type of data defines a type of value. An variable that is attributed a type of data can only arrest a value inside of this type of values. All the values in ActionScript 3.0, primitive or complexes, are objects. Primitive values are: Boolean, int, void, Number, String, uint and undefined. Complex values are: Array, Dates, Error, Function, RegExp, XML, and XMLList. Continue reading →