#initclip and #endinitclip
For movieclips associated with classes, its important that the classes for such movieclips are defined before those movieclips attempt to access them (before they are created). Generally that's not an issue since your classes should be pre-defined in the first frame of your Flash movie. For self-contained movieclips which contain their own classes defined within themselves, i.e. components, this is not the case.

Because components have their class definition within their component movieclip, Flash has no way of reading and defining that class until after the component clip has already been instantiated. This means that that particular component would then not be able to have an association with that class (as it was not defined in time for its creation). The #initclip and #endinitclip actions allow for a solution.

Actionscript placed between the #initclip and #endinitclip commands in a movieclip in a Flash movie's library that has been exported for actionscript with a linkage ID will be defined prior to frame 1 of that movie as its loaded into the Flash player. This allows for class definitions for components contained within components to be predefined before that component can be used. Code outside of this block will be run normally after that clip is loaded and played in the player.

#initclip

// code to be defined prior to

// frame 1 of the main movie

componentClass = function(){

// component's constructor

};

// more class definition for this clip

 

// register the class with this movieclip symbol

Object.registerClass("thisLinkageID", componentClass);

#endinitclip

 

// normally functioning code

stop();

// etc.

The practical use of #initclip and #endinitclip pretty much begins and ends with components. Otherwise, your code can just be placed in frame 1 of your main timeline and will function properly, being defined in time for any movieclip in your movie needing it. Because components contain their own class definitions, they need these actions to be able to pre-define their classes so that they will be ready when the component is actually used.

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