Basic Actionscript 3.0 OOP Confusion

Question

I'm having a difficult time getting basic Actionscript OOP
principles to work in my code. I have an application I'm building
that extends the Sprite object. I try to instantiate another Sprite
object, and specify the with/height/x/y values to size this new
object, but it never properly sets these values. If I trace the
width/height, etc. they're always equal to 0. I'm not exactly sure
what I'm doing wrong.
The 3 different sizing syntax I've tried are:
graphics.drawRect(0,0,width,height); // DOES NOT WORK
graphics.drawRect(0,0,parent.width,parent.height); // WORKS
graphics.drawRect(0,0,600,400); // WORKS
Code is posted below:
package {
import flash.display.Sprite;
import flash.display.Stage;
import flash.display.StageScaleMode;
import flash.display.StageAlign;
import ChartPanel;
public class Chart extends Sprite
private var chartType:int;
private var chartPanel:ChartPanel;
public function Chart()
stage.scaleMode = StageScaleMode.NO_SCALE;
stage.align = StageAlign.TOP_LEFT;
graphics.beginFill(0xffffff);
graphics.drawRect(0,0,stage.stageWidth,stage.stageHeight);
// Fill BG as White
graphics.endFill();
chartPanel = new ChartPanel();
chartPanel.setDimensions(600, 400, 0, 0);
addChild(chartPanel);
chartPanel.draw();
package
import flash.display.Sprite;
public class ChartPanel extends Sprite
public function ChartPanel() {}
public function setDimensions(w:int, h:int, off_l:int,
off_t:int):void
this.width = stage.width;
this.height = stage.height;
this.x = off_l;
this.y = off_t;
public function draw():void
trace("DRAWING: this.width=" + this.width + " this.height="
+ this.height + " this.x=" + this.x + " this.y=" + this.y);
graphics.beginFill(0x0000ff);
// DOES NOT WORK graphics.drawRect(0,0,width,height);
graphics.drawRect(0,0,parent.width,parent.height);
graphics.endFill();

Answer 1

well... you still don't grab the hole width and height
concept, as I told you they are MEASURES not fixed variables, so by
setting a width and a height you are not defining a biding
rectangle with content in ti, the Sprite class simple doesn't have
the code for that, the Sprite is simply an elements with things in
it, now actual border or frame.
For what you want you'll still need your invisible rectangle,
but it will have to be a MASK of the sprite class.
As for the code (NOTE I'M JUST WRITING HERE SO IT CAN HAVE
SOME BUGS) it should be something like this:
public class Box extends Sprite {
private var border:Shape;
private var _width:Number = 100;
private var _height:Number = 100;
public function Box() {
border = new Shape();
addChild(border);
mask = border;
drawDispArea();
private function drawDispArea():void {
border.graphics.clear();
border.graphics.beginFill(0xFF0000);
border.drawRect(0, 0, width, height);
override public function set width(v:Number):void {
_width = v;
drawDispArea();
override public function get width():Number {
return _width;
override public function set height(v:Number):void {
_height = v;
drawDispArea();
override public function get height():Number {
return _height;
}