Indexing instances of specific class inside MovieClip authored with Flash Pro

Question

Hi there.
I'm writing a class that extends MovieClip and that is linked to the MovieClip Object authored via Flash Pro during development (Father object).
The hierarchy of this MovieClip Object is hidden from me - everything I know is that it may contain instances of other Class that was authored during development and extends MovieClip in the same manner (Son objects).
I have no information regarding names or hierarchical positions of these Son objects inside Father object.
Now the question is: how to get them listed?
So approach I've taken was to implement current events:
public class Son extends MovieClip
     public static const INITIALIZED : String = "son_initialized";
     public function Son ()
          this.dispatchEvent (new Event (INITIALIZED));
public class Father extends MovieClip
     public var son : Vector<Son>;
     public function Father ()
          son = new Vector<Son> ();
          this.addEventListener (Son.INITIALIZED, this.onSonInitialized);
     public function onSonInitialized (event : Event)
          this.son.push (event.target);
Well, this code compiles with no errors whatsoever, but it turns out that onSonInitialized gets never called. I assume that's because children constructors are called ahead of their parent one.
Is there any way to get them listed?
Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

kglad,
I'm trying to get an array of references to Son objects (Son extends MovieClip), randomly located deep inside display list hierarchy of Father object (extends MovieClip too).
The Father movieclip is authorized in Flash Professional and is a black box for me - I can only manipulate Father.as and Son.as.
Since I can't know exactly their pathes and names (i.e. father.child1.child5OfChild1.son32 for example), I decided to make them self-aware, dispatching event during construction time, messaging everybody that this instance of Son exists:
public function Son ()
     this.dispatchEvent (new Event (INITIALIZED));
And then I attached a listener inside Father's constructor:
public function Father ()
     this.addEventListener (Son.INITIALIZED, this.onSonInitialized);
The idea was that this event listener should have been catching all the Sons, located inside Father. But it doesn't work that way - Father's constructor seems to be called after all constructors of its children, so this event listener catches nothing.
I've worked this around by straightforward display list traversing - it works, but doesn't look so elegant. May be there is still a way to make it work through events?