# Referring to a variable

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/referring-to-a-variable/18512>\
**Category:** Uncategorized\
**Created:** [April 17, 2003, 12:18pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/referring-to-a-variable/18512 "2003-04-17T12:18:26Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 10\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![blah\_de\_blah](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a8b319/32.png) [@blah\_de\_blah](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/blah_de_blah)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2003, 12:18pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/referring-to-a-variable/18512/1 "2003-04-17T12:18:26Z")

</div>

say i have this code:

blah = “123 + i”

so blah is a variable right? so how would i refer to this variable?  
i want to be able to do:

\_root.blah.onPress = function ()

but this won’t work beause you need an instance name instead, so how would you do this? thx, i hope you understood what i was saying 🙂

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2003, 12:21pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/referring-to-a-variable/18512/2 "2003-04-17T12:21:44Z")

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1. dont start names with numbers
2. [How do I adress instances by variables ?](http://www.kirupaforum.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=12082)

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2003, 2:11pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/referring-to-a-variable/18512/3 "2003-04-17T14:11:42Z")

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i understand some of that now, but when i try it, it seems to not work? can you check whats wrong with this code plz? I keep getting an output error, and i’ve been staring at the code for a good amount of time, but still not notice whats wrong :-/

Here it is:  
[AS]  
for(i=0, i\<10, i++) {  
dupename = \_root[“newbox”+i]  
duplicateMovieClip(\_root.box, dupename, 1)

}  
\_root[“newbox”+i].onPress = function() {  
startDrag(this, true)  
}  
[/AS]

thx

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2003, 2:21pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/referring-to-a-variable/18512/4 "2003-04-17T14:21:13Z")

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try this:

```auto
for (i=0, i<10, i++) {
dupename = "newbox"+i;
duplicateMovieClip(_root.box, dupename, i)
_root[dupename].onPress = function() {
        this.startDrag();
};
}

```

😉

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2003, 2:55pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/referring-to-a-variable/18512/5 "2003-04-17T14:55:40Z")

</div>

I still seem to be getting an error?

Scene=Scene 1, Layer=AS, Frame=1: Line 2: ‘;’ expected  
dupename = “newbox”+i;

Scene=Scene 1, Layer=AS, Frame=1: Line 7: Unexpected ‘}’ encountered

thats whats been happening with my previous code too…  
Its getting really frustrating, hope someone will find out whats wrong 😕

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2003, 3:30pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/referring-to-a-variable/18512/6 "2003-04-17T15:30:16Z")

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oh!! i didn’t notice that you have commas instead of semicolons. 😛  
i shouldn’t have copied and pasted the script. :-\

```auto
for (i=0; i<10; i++) {
        dupe = duplicateMovieClip(_root.box, "newbox"+i, i);
        dupe.onPress = function() {
                this.startDrag();
        };
}

```

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2003, 3:37pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/referring-to-a-variable/18512/7 "2003-04-17T15:37:23Z")

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Alright this is beginning to get really annoying :-\

It again doesn’t seem to work? This isnt’ for me, but I need lots of help myself too 🙂 Heres the file, you think you can have a little look at it for me? thx

Oh yea, what was wrong with my code earlier? What did you mean by semicolons and commas!?

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2003, 3:50pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/referring-to-a-variable/18512/8 "2003-04-17T15:50:01Z")

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sorry… i don’t know why it didn’t work. :-\

```auto
for (i=0; i<10; i++) {
	dupe = "newbox"+i;
	duplicateMovieClip(_root.box, dupe, i);
	_root[dupe].onPress = function() {
		this.startDrag();
	};
}

```

fixed. =)

> _Originally posted by blah-de-blah_  
> **Oh yea, what was wrong with my code earlier? What did you mean by semicolons and commas!?**

for (i=0, i\<10, i++) **comma ,**  
for (i=0; i\<10; i++) **semicolon ;**

see the difference? 😉

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2003, 3:54pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/referring-to-a-variable/18512/9 "2003-04-17T15:54:22Z")

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ah never realized that, thx very much 🙂

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![system](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex011/uploads/kirupa/original/3X/6/2/621e5c11736f46532526e61be85940af4230f3e5.png) [@system](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/system)\
**Post date:** [April 17, 2003, 3:56pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/referring-to-a-variable/18512/10 "2003-04-17T15:56:34Z")

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as always… no problem. 😉 =)