Moving enemy in flash as3

Question

So I have an array of fireballs, I was wondering how I would go about moving these items to create a gauntlet like game. I've got the array created and it's full of fireballs but I can't seem to get them to move. This is what my creation of the array looks like:

for (var i:Number = 0; i < fireballs; i++) {
    var mcFireball :fireball = new fireball();
    this.addChild(mcFireball);
    mcFireball.x = Math.floor((Math.random() * location) + 100);
    mcFireball.y = Math.floor((Math.random() * location) + 100);
    mcFireball.scaleX = .5;
    mcFireball.scaleY = .5;
    array.push(mcFireball);
}

this is how I try to move them:

        for (var i :Number = 0; i < fireballs; i++) {
            if (array[i] == null) {
                trace("Error here");
                return;
            }
            trace(array[i]);
            var mcFireball :fireball = array[i];
            mcFireball.moveEnemy();
        }

And this is what my moveEnemy() looks like:

    public function moveEnemy():void
    {
        if ((this.x + this.width > this.stage.stageWidth) || (this.x - this.width <= 0))
            _nEnemyMovementSpeed *= -1;         

        this.x += _nEnemyMovementSpeed;
    }

I'm sure the error is within the scope of the function, but I'm not sure what I need to do to get these to work properly

My error is that moveEnemy() isn't a function

Answer 1

Ok I'm sleepy & this is off the top of my head (no Flash tested) but it should give you general idea.

mcFireball.moveEnemy(); was causing error because you're trying to reach it by saying it's a function within the mcFireball class. To understand better (example): You have a Game_Stages.as class file and each level is a function so to run level 5 you would say similar to what you had.. Game_Stages.Level5(); Now consider is mcFireBall a class file? does it have a moveEnemy function? See why Flash cries?

Possible Solution

for (var i :Number = 0; i < fireballs; i++) 
{
            if (array[i] == null) 
            { trace("Error here"); return; }

            trace(array[i]);
            var mcFireball :fireball = array[i];
            moveEnemy(mcFireball); //do moveEnemy func with mcFireball as input 
 }

Then you can do moveEnemy like below. In this function we now reference the same input as "fball"

public function moveEnemy(fball:Sprite):void
{
        if ((fball.x + fball.width > this.stage.stageWidth) || (fball.x - fball.width <= 0))
        { _nEnemyMovementSpeed *= -1; }         

        else
        {fball.x += _nEnemyMovementSpeed; }
}

This assumes that mcFireball is a sprite (and should work whether its a library object or created by code)