Adobe® Flex® 4 Language Reference
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mx.automation 
AutomationID 
Packagemx.automation
Classpublic class AutomationID
InheritanceAutomationID Inheritance Object

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Product Version: Flex 3
Runtime Versions: Flash Player 9, AIR 1.1

The Flex automation framework uses the AutomationID class to build object identification that Agents can use. AutomationID consists of many AutomationIDParts, where each part identifies an object in the hierarchy. AutomationID defines a serialization format for an Array of maps. You use this class to represent a hierarchy using segments that describe the properties of each object within the hierarchy. The serialize format of the id is:
property_1_name{property_1_value property_1_type}property_2_name{property_2_value property_2_type}|property_1_name{property_1_value property_1_type}property_2_name{property_2_value property_2_type}

Consider a Flex application with following hierarchy:

Application -- > Accordion -- > HBox -- > Button

The AutomationID of the button would consist of four AutomationIDParts, one for application, one for Accordion, one for HBox, and one for the Button. AutomationIDPart is a table of property names and their values. The property-value pairs are different for different object types. These property-value pairs should be usable to identify the object uniquely.

AutomationID is created by walking the parent hierarchy of the leaf child object and creating the AutomationIDPart for each object encountered. Parents that have showInAutomationHierarchy set to false are skipped. Children of such parents are considered the children of the next higher parent whose showInAuto flag is set to true. During recording, this AutomationID can be saved by the agent.

During playback when Agent provides AutomationID for finding an object, the Display object hierarchy is walked from the top Application object downwards. At each level, a child that matches the AutomationIDPart closest is picked up from the list of all the children. If multiple children match the criteria, an error is thrown. Users are responsible to resolve such conflicts by providing a unique automationName or identifying new properties on objects which make them unique.

Agents should save the object information if they desire persistence. AutomationID provides toString() and parse() methods to convert the object to a string representation and back.

You can use the IAutomationManager.createAutomationID() and IAutomationManager.resolveAutomationID() methods to create and resolve AutomationID objects, respectively.

You can use the IAutomationObjectHelper.helpCreateIDPart() and IAutomationObjectHelper.helpResolveIDPart() methods to identify a child with in a parent which matches the AutomationIDPart.

See also



Public Properties
 PropertyDefined By
 Inheritedconstructor : Object
A reference to the class object or constructor function for a given object instance.
Object
  length : int
[read-only] The number of parts in this id.
AutomationID
 Inheritedprototype : Object
[static] A reference to the prototype object of a class or function object.
Object
Public Methods
 MethodDefined By
  
Constructor.
AutomationID
  
Adds a parts to the front of the id.
AutomationID
  
Adds a parts to the end of the id.
AutomationID
  
Concatenates another id to this id.
AutomationID
  
Compares this object with the given AutomationID.
AutomationID
 Inherited
Indicates whether an object has a specified property defined.
Object
  
Indicates if there are more parts of the id.
AutomationID
 Inherited
Indicates whether an instance of the Object class is in the prototype chain of the object specified as the parameter.
Object
  
[static] Parses the string and returns an id.
AutomationID
  
Returns the first object in the id
AutomationID
  
Returns the last object in the id.
AutomationID
 Inherited
Indicates whether the specified property exists and is enumerable.
Object
  
Removes the first object from this id.
AutomationID
  
Removes the last object from this id.
AutomationID
 Inherited
Sets the availability of a dynamic property for loop operations.
Object
 Inherited
Returns the string representation of this object, formatted according to locale-specific conventions.
Object
  
Serializes the id to a string.
AutomationID
 Inherited
Returns the primitive value of the specified object.
Object
Property Detail

length

property
length:int  [read-only]

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Product Version: Flex 3
Runtime Versions: Flash Player 9, AIR 1.1

The number of parts in this id.



Implementation
    public function get length():int
Constructor Detail

AutomationID

()Constructor
public function AutomationID()

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Product Version: Flex 3
Runtime Versions: Flash Player 9, AIR 1.1

Constructor.

Method Detail

addFirst

()method
public function addFirst(p:AutomationIDPart):void

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Product Version: Flex 3
Runtime Versions: Flash Player 9, AIR 1.1

Adds a parts to the front of the id.

Parameters

p:AutomationIDPart — Map of properties.

addLast

()method 
public function addLast(p:AutomationIDPart):void

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Product Version: Flex 3
Runtime Versions: Flash Player 9, AIR 1.1

Adds a parts to the end of the id.

Parameters

p:AutomationIDPart — Map of properties.

concat

()method 
public function concat(other:AutomationID):AutomationID

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Product Version: Flex 3
Runtime Versions: Flash Player 9, AIR 1.1

Concatenates another id to this id. Returns a new id, and does not mutate this instance.

Parameters

other:AutomationID — id to concatenate.

Returns
AutomationID — This id concatenated with the other id.

equals

()method 
public function equals(other:AutomationID):Boolean

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Product Version: Flex 3
Runtime Versions: Flash Player 9, AIR 1.1

Compares this object with the given AutomationID.

Parameters

other:AutomationID — AutomationID object which needs to be compared.

Returns
Booleantrue if they are equal, false otherwise.

isEmpty

()method 
public function isEmpty():Boolean

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Product Version: Flex 3
Runtime Versions: Flash Player 9, AIR 1.1

Indicates if there are more parts of the id.

Returns
Booleantrue if there are no more parts of the id, false otherwise.

parse

()method 
public static function parse(s:String):AutomationID

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Product Version: Flex 3
Runtime Versions: Flash Player 9, AIR 1.1

Parses the string and returns an id.

Parameters

s:String — Serialized form of the id as provided by the toString() method.

Returns
AutomationID — Parsed id.

peekFirst

()method 
public function peekFirst():AutomationIDPart

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Product Version: Flex 3
Runtime Versions: Flash Player 9, AIR 1.1

Returns the first object in the id

Returns
AutomationIDPart — First object in the id.

peekLast

()method 
public function peekLast():AutomationIDPart

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Product Version: Flex 3
Runtime Versions: Flash Player 9, AIR 1.1

Returns the last object in the id.

Returns
AutomationIDPart — Last object in the id.

removeFirst

()method 
public function removeFirst():AutomationIDPart

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Product Version: Flex 3
Runtime Versions: Flash Player 9, AIR 1.1

Removes the first object from this id.

Returns
AutomationIDPart — First object in this id.

removeLast

()method 
public function removeLast():AutomationIDPart

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Product Version: Flex 3
Runtime Versions: Flash Player 9, AIR 1.1

Removes the last object from this id.

Returns
AutomationIDPart — Last object in this id.

toString

()method 
public function toString():String

Language Version: ActionScript 3.0
Product Version: Flex 3
Runtime Versions: Flash Player 9, AIR 1.1

Serializes the id to a string.

Returns
String — The serialized id.