The new Keyword
The new keyword is nothing new. It’s been used a lot, probably by you and definitely in this tutorial, already. What new is, is an operator in Actionscript that initiates a constructor function call to create an instance of a new object of that constructor's class type with the definition as specified in the constructor function itself.

So far, we’ve made new Objects, new Strings, new Numbers, new Arrays and even just now, a new House. Each one of those are class constructors in Flash. Object, String, Number, Array – all constructors. House too, only House was a custom made constructor while the others are all pre-defined in Flash (residing in the _global object). Without the new keyword, they’re just functions. With the new keyword, they’re constructors creating instances of that class.

Note that in calling a constructor function with new, the this scope in the constructor call references the new instance being created and not the object calling the function. Its with this that property values and methods can be added to the new object. Also, when done, the constructor automatically returns the this object so that it can be assigned to whatever variable you are using to store the object. There is no need to have a line such as return this;
 

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