What is the best way to empty a Vector or Array in AS3?

Question

What is the most efficient way to empty an Array or Vector in ActionScript 3?

I've always just re-initialized them:

vector = new Vector.<T>();
array = [];

It doesn't look like there's an empty() function or anything similar.

Is there a better way?

Answer 1

Re-initializing the array is fine in most cases, since the garbage collector will just sweep up the old array. Still, if you want to empty an array without creating a new one you can set array.length = 0

Answer 2

Another option is to use the splice method.

Array::splice documentation

For an array the following call empties it:

array.splice(0);

For a vector the second parameter is enforced, so the call becomes:

vector.splice(0, vector.length);