AS3 :: Flash - How Are SWFs Are Compiled From External .as Class Files

In the Flash app I'm building, I have a "main" SWF that will load a variety of "child" SWFs.

All of the AS3 code for both the main SWF and child SWFs is contained in external .as class files.

In other words, each movie has it's own document class .as file.

There are also a number of .as class files for all of the common elements (e..g, UI buttons and controls).

So - for example - both my main SWF and all child SWFs use the "MyCommandButton" class; the code for this class is in MyCommandButton.as, which all SWFs reference (import).

Here's what I don't understand.

(Let's say that the code in MyCommandButton.as draws buttons that are red.)

First, I compile ALL of the child SWFs.

Next, I change MyCommandButton.as, so that the buttons it draws are blue, instead of red.

Then, I compile the main SWF.

When I run the app (main.swf), I would expect all of the buttons in the main SWF to be blue (since that's what MyCommandButton.as specified when main.swf was compiled), and all of the buttons in the child SWFs will be red (since that's what MyCommandButton.as specified when they were compiled.)

Instead, ALL of the buttons are blue, which means the change I made to MyCommandButton.as affected all of the child SWFs, even though I didn't recompile them.