HTML tags in textfield

If you want to format text in field using old html tag here is simple list of possible tags:

• <a> hyperlink. Has two parameters:
• target - target window
• href - url  (or event!)
• <b> - text betwen those tags will be bold
• <br> - breaks line
• <font> - describes font:
• color - color of the text. Must be in hex (with # at the begining)
• face - font name
• size - font size
• <img>  allows to embed image (or swf) like in html site. Here is a list of supported properties:
• src - source of media
• width - width of rectangle where media is placed (always in px)
• height - height of rectangle where media is placed (always in px)
• align - horizontal alignment. Left or right. Specifies on which side text will flow around the image
• hspace - horizontal margin around media. By default it is 8px
• vspace - vertical margin around media. By default it is 8px
• id - identifier for embedded media. Used to controll it
• checkPolicyFile - connected to the security policy. Used with flash swf file embedded
• <i> - text between those tags will be italic. 
• <li>, <ul>, <ol> - lists. ordered and dotted
• <p> - paragraph. Supports only two attributes:
• align - specifies if text block is aligned to left/right/center or justify
• class - connects with CSS class
• <span> - inline part of text that allows only one attribute:
• class - classname from CSS
• <u> - text between those tags will be underlined

Complete description in Adobe's API: http://help.adobe.com/en_US/FlashPlatform/reference/actionscript/3/flash/text/TextField.html#htmlText

Associative array

There no such thing like associative array in ActionScript. It would be too easy. In the other hand every object in AS3 is an associative collection of values. Here is example of how it works:

var assocArray:Object = new Object();

And that is all for creating. to set value we call setter

assocArray.price = 10000;

or more like aray

assocArray['price'] = 10000;

Reading looks similar:

assocArray.price

or

assocArray['price']

More complicated situation is with displaying full array. Trying to trace instance will cause something like this:

[object Object]

Also checking the size or length by variable of method doeas not help because returns zero. The easiest option is to create a for-each loop that displays all variables:

for (var item in assocArray)
{
    trace(item,' : ',assocArray[item]);
}

For counting elements the fastest solution is creating a loop that increments value for each item. But it's not good solution for big structures. In this situation good solution will be own class that controls records with push() and pop() methods.