Flash: What is `BitmapData.ctor`?

Question

I'm profiling some Flash code, and one of the methods that's taking a lot of time is BitmapData.ctor. What, err, is that?

Answer 1

It's the constructor of the BitmapData class.

Constructors have the same name as their class in many languages, but these languages still have to find a way to distinguish the two symbols internally. Thus, the manifestation of ctor (or .ctor) methods that you can find neither in your code nor in the documentation.

Answer 2

If you try to create a BitmapData with invalid data you get this in your error stack:

ArgumentError: Error #2015: Invalid BitmapData. at flash.display::BitmapData/ctor() at flash.display::BitmapData()

So - that suggests to me that ctor() is just an init() function run from the BitmapData constructor.