Does An Object Have "Children" - apache-flex

Question

I just want to know if the object in question, has any sub-objects within it or not.
Do I really have to do THIS:
public static function getLength(o:Object):bool
{
for (var item:* in o)
if (item != "mx_internal_uid")
return true;
return false;
}
Isn't there some way to say SOMETHING LIKE: Object.hasChildren();
OR EVEN Object.childCount();
The Object in question does NOT extend the DisplayObjectContainer. It is just something like:
var Ob:Object;
Ob.SomeProp="xxx";
Ob.SomeOtherProp="zzz";
How can I know how many "entries" there are in the object. (in this case 2).
In other words, how does "for (var item:* in Ob)" know when to stop.
???

Answer 1

A good class to inspect objects is the flex built in ObjectUtil. I think what you're trying to achieve would be done by using (obj is the object to analyze):
ObjectUtil.getClassInfo(obj).properties.length
But ObjectUtil.getClassInfo would be a good place too look if you're trying to analyze an object, it returns a lot of information (read more on LiveDocs).
It also has a function to check if a variable is a simple one - ObjectUtil.isSimple

Answer 2

By object you mean the Object class, hence counting the properties, or the object on the displaylist, if the latter, that objects surely extends DisplayObjectContainer wich has the numChildren property

Answer 3

As kajyr says, if it's a DisplayObjectContainer you can check for numChildren.
If you want to check if a generic objects contains simple properties ( primitives like Number,int, uint, String, Boolean ) or complex properties (subObjects, instances of some class ) that you might regards as children to that generic object, you do the following:
var testObj:Object = {id:1,name:'DumDum'};
var testObj2:Object = {id:2,name:'NumNum',data:[1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9],somethingComplex:{firstName:'Num',lastName:'Num'}};
trace(isSimple(testObj).length == 0);//prints true
trace(isSimple(testObj2).length == 0);//prints false
trace(isSimple(testObj2));
function isSimple(obj:*):Array{
var complex:Array = [];
for(var prop in obj){
if(!(obj[prop] is String || obj[prop] is int || obj[prop] is uint || obj[prop] is Number || obj[prop] is Boolean))
complex.push({prop: obj[prop]});
}
return complex;
}
If you want to get the number of members (variables associated with an object), that is easy enough to get:
var Ob:Object = {};
Ob.SomeProp="xxx";
Ob.SomeOtherProp="zzz";
trace(getMembersNum(Ob));//prints 2
function getMembersNum(obj:*):int{
var result:int = 0;
for(var prop in obj) result++;
return result;
}
You would write this in your utility package/class maybe like this:
public static function get numMembers(obj:*):int{
var result:int = 0;
for(var prop in obj) result++;
return result;
}
HTH