How to remove a new timer of the same array? - arrays

Question

Hey everyone so I have an array private var aFishArray:Array; that is setup with the timer inside my constructor.
tFishTimer = new Timer(800);
//Listen for timer intervals/ticks
tFishTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, addMainFish,false,0,true);
//Start timer object
tFishTimer.start();
then in the end game Condition I removed the timers tFishTimer.removeEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, addMainFish);
tFishTimer.stop();
Now this works perfectly but the problem is when I make a new timer of the same instance inside a separate function like so
private function checkFishPowerHitBucket():void
{
for (var j:int = 0; j < aFishPowerUpArray.length; j++)
{
//get current fish in j loop
var currentfPower:mcMoreFishPowerUp = aFishPowerUpArray[j];
//test if current fish is hitting bucket
if (currentfPower.hitTestObject(bucket))
{
//If we want timer to only run a certain amount of times then new Timer(1000, ??)
tFishTimer = new Timer(100, 30);
//Listen for timer intervals/ticks
tFishTimer.addEventListener(TimerEvent.TIMER, addMainFish, false, 0, true);
//Start timer object
tFishTimer.start();
}
}
}
and then in my end game condition try to remove the timer and the movie clips from entering the screen anymore it no longer happens. The fish just keep appearing on the screen. Is there anything that i can do to remove all instances of these timers when the game is over. Im thinking that by creating a new timer with the same array it cancels the command to delete it when it starts a new timer? any help would be appreciated thanks.
also here is the addMainFish(); Function
private function addMainFish(e:Event):void
{
//Create new fish object
var newFish = new mcMainFish();
//Add fish object to stage
stage.addChild(newFish);
//Add fish to fish Array
aFishArray.push(newFish);
//trace(aFishArray.length);
}

Answer 1

It doesn't really 'delete' the old timer, but what has happened is that when you create the new timer and store it in the same variable, you've lost the reference to the old one, so it just resides somewhere in memory, forever running (or until it hits it's limit, if it has one).
A way to solve this particular problem is to keep a reference to the old timer(s) such as in an array, then when you make a new timer, move the old one to an Timer array first so that you have access to it still.
I do not recommend this.
Having multiple timers like this will cost you in performance and possibly a fair amount of unpredictability. Also, it can lead to some tough debugging down the road as you may have trouble tracing which timer caused which thing to fail, strange instances of objects trying to access the same data, having to deal with so many objects in itself, etc.
What you could do is just have a single dedicated timer and within that timer do All of the processing on each of your objects that need it. You could also avoid a timer altogether and just use your game loop to do this logic.
This post illustrates a similar problem and the answer there is similar to what I've mentioned here.