For ... in loop giving me an "implicit coercion" error--but describeType says I've got right type?

Question

Hi All,
I've got the following code:
var currentStateIndex:int = 0;
for (var index:int in this.states){
     if(this.currentState == this.states[index].name){
          currentStateIndex = index;
          break;
I'm trying to identify the index of the current state.  It's giving me an error on the for line, saying "Implicit coercion of a value of type String to an unrelated type int."  Hmm, strange, I thought--wouldn't the keys of the this.states array (and it is just a plain vanilla array) be integers?
So, I tried this:
var currentStateIndex:int = 0;
for (var index:* in this.states){
     var theType:* = flash.utils.describeType(index);
     if(this.currentState == this.states[index].name){
          currentStateIndex = index;
          break;
I used the debugger to inspect the value of theType.  It's this:
<type name="int" base="Object" isDynamic="false" isFinal="true" isStatic="false">
  <extendsClass type="Object"/>
  <constructor>
    <parameter index="1" type="*" optional="true"/>
  </constructor>
</type>
So, indeed, describeType says that the index value is of type "int"... so why can't I strongly type it as an int?

Answer 1

rtalton wrote:
This works:
                var currentStateIndex:int;
                 for (var idx:String in this.states) {
                    if (this.currentState == this.states[idx].name) {
                        //the names match!
                        currentStateIndex = int(idx);//cast as an integer.
                        break;
But using your method you will never get a match for the base state, which is always "null", and does not have a name property.
What is the right way to identify the index of the current state, if the current state is the default state?