Flash math Problems !!!

Im having problems with flash working some math for me.

Im simply trying to get it to resize a box by useing setting passed from the xml. So im passing in a width which is called “hw” for holder width and “bw” for boarder width. so i have the holder width at 720 and the boarder width 20. im trying to add both these together to get the background to add 20 pixels width to it so it looks like this.

centre.grey._width = hw+bw;

no i have traced this and instead of getting “740” as you expect i get “72010” which is massive.

the funny thing is if i minus it i get “700” why wont it add it though? i have set “hw” and “bw” as number variables but still doesnt work.

If anyone can help be greatly appretiated.

it won’t add as numbers, because flash thinks they are strings, so they get added as strings.

how come it will take it away though? and is there a way around this?

Think i’v sorted it. I have set the width to the holder and then used that to add the boarder to the background.

centre.grey._width = holder._width+bw;

always something simple! thanks fonz.

this should also do it, if its AS2

Thanks Marvidude That works a treat as well much appreciated.

The reason it would subract as you wanted but not add is because a String can’t be subracted, but it can be added. “Blue” + ” ” + “Green” will equal “Blue Green” and XML gives info as Strings, so “720” + “10” would make “72010”. So in order to do math on the numbers, it must be converted to numbers first, that’s what Marvidude’s method is doing with parseInt, Number() will also work. But since strings cannot be subracted, it automatically converted it to numbers when you tried to subract

var hw:Number = 720 
var bw:Number = 20
centre.grey._width = hw+bw

This should work too I guess…

You can always hard-force to number;
centre.grey._width = Number(hw)+Number(bw);
It’s not pretty but gets the job done