You can add any classes that you want to use in your Flex applications to a SWC file. These classes do not have to be components, but are often files that components use. They are classes that might be used at run time and, therefore, are not checked by the compiler. For example, your components might use a library of classes that perform mathematical functions, or use a custom logging utility. This documentation refers to these classes as utility classes. Utility classes are not exposed as MXML tags.

To add utility classes to a SWC file, you use the include-sources option. This option lets you specify a path to a class file rather than the class name, or specify an entire directory of classes.

The following command-line example adds the FV_calc.as and FV_format.as utility classes to the SWC file:

compc -source-path . 
    -output c:/jrun4/servers/flex2/flex/WEB-INF/flex/user_classes/MySwc.swc 
    -include-sources FV_classes/FV_format.as FV_classes/FV_calc.as 
    -include-classes asbutton.MyButton

In a configuration file, these options appear as the following example shows:

<compiler>
    <source-path>
        <path-element>.</path-element>
    </source-path>
    <output>c:/jrun4/servers/flex2/flex/WEB-INF/flex/user_classes/        MySwc.swc</output>
</compiler>
<include-classes>
    <class>asbutton.MyButton</class>
</include-classes>
<include-sources>
    <path-element>FV_classes/FV_format.as</path-element>
    <path-element>FV_classes/FV_calc.as</path-element>
<include-sources>

When specifying files with the include-sources option, you must give the full filename (for example, FV_calc.as instead of FV_calc) because the file is not a component.

You can also provide a directory name to the include-sources option. In this case, the compiler includes all files with an MXML or AS extension, and ignores all other files.

Classes that you add with the include-sources option can be accessed from the generic namespace in your Flex applications. To use them, you need to add the following code in your Flex application tag:

xmlns:local="*"

You can then use them as tags; for example:

<local:FV_calc id="calc" rate=".0125" nper="12" pmt="100" pv="0" type="1"/>