Classes help

1

i have a class named NavMenu that has a static function named createDropDownMenus. inside this function there’s a for loop which loops through an array and does something for each instance inside the array. however, when i try to use this snippet of code inside the for loops, it refuses to work (traces back undefined). outside the loop it works fine.

here’s my code:
the code above the // ^ comments are the pieces that relate to problem


class NavMenu
{
	// *
	// * Static Member Variables
	// *
	public static var menu_items:Array = new Array();

	// *
	// * Static Member Functions
	// *
	public static function createDropDownMenus()
	{
		var menu_path = eval(NavMenu.menu_mc_path);
		
		var num_menu_items:Number = NavMenu.menu_items.length;
		var num_children = NavMenu.menu_items[1].child_name.length;
		// *** ^ Above code works ***
		
		for (var i = 0; i < num_menu_items; i++)
		{
			var num_children = NavMenu.menu_items*.child_name.length;
			// *** ^ Above code does NOT work ***

			if (NavMenu.menu_items*.child_name.length > 0)
			{
		 	var drop_down_name:String = NavMenu.menu_items*.parent_name;
		 	var num_children:Number = NavMenu.menu_items*.child_name.length;
		 	var submenu_height:Number = 56 + ((num_children - 1) * 7) + (num_children * 7) + 9;
		 	menu_path.createEmptyMovieClip("dd_" + drop_down_name, menu_path.getNextHighestDepth());
				with (menu_path["dd_" + drop_down_name])
				{
					beginFill(0xE3E1CF, 100);
					moveTo(0, 0);
					lineTo(88, 0);
					lineTo(88, 48);
					lineTo(106, 48);
					lineTo(106, submenu_height);
					lineTo(0, submenu_height);
					endFill();
				}
				
		 	menu_path["dd_" + drop_down_name]._x = start_x + (NavMenu.margin_x * 2) + 1;
			}
		}
	}
}

any help would be appreciated. thank you,