How to I change a variable to a Boolean Value? What is a Boolean Value?

Posted January 27, 2005

A Boolean is a value that is either True or False.

Translate True and False into numbers and you get False = 0, and True = 1.

Flash had a built in Method that will change a variable to a Boolean. Here is some sample code on how to implement that;

var myVariable:Boolean = Boolean(myValue);

This converts the value of “myValue” into a Boolean and stores it as a Boolean value in a variable called myVariable.

Now, what if the value of the variable “myValue” is a string? Well that will store “NaN” in myVariable. NaN translates into “Not a Number”. A string value can’t be change into a Boolean value.

Here are a couple more examples;

var mySample:Boolean = Boolean(123);

var mySample:Boolean = Boolean(0);

The first value evaluates to “True” because any number greater than one will evaluate to “True”. The second value will evaluate to False.

You may notice when I am defining these variables, the format looks like this - var mySample:Boolean. But you don’t know why you are adding a “:Boolean” after the name of the variable. This is data typing. You are defining the type of variable data that can be stored in this variable.

I hope to explain this in a little more depth in the near future.