Hi

1) Flex can declare a variable as type Function but can it declare a variable as a specific function? (i.e. a C# delegate)

 

For example

 

Is the following possible where SomeFunction is defined elsewhere? If so how is SomeFunction defined.

 

var value:SomeFunction;

Do you mean this:

var traceParameter:Function = function (aParam:String)
{
    trace(aParam);
};
traceParameter("hello"); // hello

or

function traceParameter(aParam:String)
{
     trace(aParam);
};

var otherFunction:Function = traceParameter;

you can find more in the flex help under Functions

2) I understand the syntax "var value:*" but what is the name for this type of declaration?

I'm not quite sure about this one but I just simple call it * type(very creative )

3) Does Flex support abstract classes? Does Flex support abstract methods?

No, it doesn't support abstract classes... but there is some sort of workaround, in your "Abstract" Class create the methods and in each abstract method just thorw an Error indicating that this method has to be overriden

4) Does Flex support reflection (i.e. querying an object type definition)? If so how does this work?

Yes, look in the help for getDefinitionByName and getQualifiedClassName... here is a Sample to dinamically create a class

var ClassReference:Class = getDefinitionByName(getQualifiedClassName(entity)) as Class;
var tmpClass:* = new ClassReference();

you can also get the class attributes by calling

describeType() wich returns a XML with the class definition or calling ObjectUtil.getClassInfo

also, you can use a string to query an object lets say, person["name"] is the same of using person.name, it is pretty dynamic but not recomended for performance and code bad practice reasons...

5) Is it possible to convert value in "var value:*" to a string for debugging (i.e. dump the properties and their values to the trace command)?

I haven't tested this one but you could cast the object to String -> String(value) or try the toString method

Hope some of this can be usefull

Gus