import

Availability

Flash Player 6.

Usage

import className
import packageName.*

Note: To use this keyword, you must specify ActionScript 2.0 and Flash Player 6 or later in the Flash tab of your FLA file's Publish Settings dialog box. This statement is supported in the Actions panel as well as in external class files.

Parameters

className The fully qualified name of a class you have defined in an external class file.

packageName A directory in which you have stored related class files.

Description

Keyword; lets you access classes without specifying their fully qualified names. For example, if you want to use the class macr.util.users.UserClass.as in a script, you must either refer to it by its fully qualified name or import it; if you import it, you can then refer to it by the class name:

// before importing
var myUser:UserClass = new macr.util.users.UserClass();
// after importing
import macr.util.users.UserClass;
var myUser:UserClass = new UserClass();

If there are several class files in the directory that you want to access, you can import them all in a single statement:

import macr.util.users.*;

You must issue the import statement before you try to access the imported class without fully specifying its name.

If you import a class but then don't use it in your script, the class isn't exported as part of the SWF file. This means you can import large packages without worrying about the size of your SWF file; the bytecode associated with a class is included in a SWF file only if that class is actually used.

The import statement applies only to the current script (frame or object) in which it's called. For example, suppose on Frame 1 of a Flash document you import all the classes in the macr.util package. On that frame, you can reference classes in that package by their simple names.

// On Frame 1 of a FLA:
import macr.util.*;

var myFoo:foo = new foo();

On another frame script, however, you would need to reference classes in that package by their fully qualified names (var myFoo:foo = new macr.util.foo();) or add an import statement to the other frame, as well, that imports the classes in that package.

For more information on importing, see Importing classes and Using packages.