DuplicateMovieClip fails under Flash 8

Question

Has anyone else found problems with Flash 8 Player on
duplicateMovieClip. I have used the attached script to make
multiple versons of a falling rain drop in the past. This script is
still functioning fully when published as Flash 6, from Flash 8
Pro.
In order to take advantage of alpha channel masks which are
now available with Flash 8, I would have thought simply reusing
this trusty script would have worked as it does under Flash 6. But
instead the animation fails to duplicate.
Any suggestions greatly received.

Answer 1

You probably should have started a new thread with your
specific questions, but since you are here…
Under Flash 6 you could do something like this:
myNumber=5+n;
trace(myNumber);
And you would get a trace of 5. Flash just assumed that n was
a variable with a value of zero. But in Flash 7 (and after) this
behaviour changed. If you try this you will get a trace of "NaN"
meaning Not a number.
That is because since you haven't given n a value it makes no
sense to add 5 to something that doesn't have a value. (Not having
a value and having a value of zero are not the same thing!)
So someplace you need to have:
var n:Number=0;
Or whatever value you want n to start at. Flash will no
longer just assume you wanted it to start at zero.
But if you are doing the above code in some kind of loop, you
don't want to have the initilization inside the loop. Otherwise, n
will just keep resetting to zero and you won't ever get
anywhere.