# Using a variable to indicate an active movie clip

**URL:** <https://forum.kirupa.com/t/using-a-variable-to-indicate-an-active-movie-clip/138320>\
**Category:** Uncategorized\
**Created:** [February 21, 2005, 9:13pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/using-a-variable-to-indicate-an-active-movie-clip/138320 "2005-02-21T21:13:52Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rynokins](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a9adbd/32.png) [@rynokins](https://forum.kirupa.com/u/rynokins)\
**Post date:** [February 21, 2005, 9:13pm UTC](https://forum.kirupa.com/t/using-a-variable-to-indicate-an-active-movie-clip/138320/1 "2005-02-21T21:13:52Z")

</div>

I’m trying to use a variable to indicate a movie clip is active. there are multiple clips, about fifteen of them, so I’m trying to get around having to talk to them all at once. I figured I could have the clip say it’s target name as a variable, and then use that variable to target it, but I’m not sure how to use the variable in an action. here’s what I was thinking:

the active clip sends it’s target name to the timeline as a variable “active-clip-target-name”

the button in another clip, to communicate with it, says:  
“\_root.”+“active-clip-target-name”+".play()";

but this is not working at all. does anyone know the correct syntax for this kind of thing?