Can you have "ByRef" arguments in AS3 functions?

Question

Any idea how to return multiple variables from a function in ActionScript 3?

Anything like VB.NET where you can have the input argument's variable modified (ByRef arguments)?

Sub do (ByRef inout As Integer)
 inout *= 5;
End Sub

Dim num As Integer = 10
Debug.WriteLine (num)        '10
do (num)
Debug.WriteLine (num)        '50

---

Anything apart from returning an associative array?

return {a:"string 1", b:"string 2"}

Answer 1

Quoting a googled source:

In ActionScript 3.0, all arguments are passed by reference because all values are stored as objects. However, objects that belong to the primitive data types, which includes Boolean, Number, int, uint, and String, have special operators that make them behave as if they were passed by value.

Which led me to look up the canonical source.

Answer 2

It appears that Strings, ints, units, Booleans are passed by Value. I tried this little snippet in Flash and the results were negative:

function func(a:String){
    a="newVal";
}

var b:String = "old";

trace(b)    //  old
func(b);
trace(b)    //  old

---

So... is String a blacklisted data type too? Boolean too? I mean whats a sure way of telling which types are passed by reference?

Answer 3

Everything in AS3 is a reference aside from [u]ints. To generalize, everything that inherits Object will be given to the function by a reference.

That being said, the only way I believe you can do it is use a container class like an Array or a String ("5" and do the conversion+math).