TAbstractResource class

Declaration

TAbstractResource = class

Descends from it: TAcceleratorsResource TBitmapResource TGenericResource TGroupResource TStringTableResource TVersionResource

Description

This is the base class that represents a resource.

A resource is identified by its type, name and language ID even if some file formats or operating systems don't consider the latter.

There are also additional properties that aren't always present in all file formats, so their values aren't always meaningful: however, they can be used to display detailed information when possible.

Every resource has a RawData stream that holds resource data. This stream uses a copy-on-write mechanism: if the resource has been read from a stream or file, RawData redirects read operations to the original stream. This is particularly useful when a resource file must be converted from a format to another, or when more resource files must be merged, since (potentially large) resource data is directly copied from the original to the destination stream without the need of allocating a lot of memory.

When resource data is encoded in a resource-specific format, RawData can be uncomfortable: it's often better to use a more specialized descendant class that provides additional properties and methods.

Resources cannot be read or written alone from/to a stream: they need to be contained in a TResources object, which represents an abstract view of a resource file.

Usually each descendant registers itself with TResourceFactory class in the initialization section of the unit in which it is implemented: this way TResourceFactory class can know which class to use to instantiate a resource of a given type.

See also

• TGenericResource
• TAcceleratorsResource
• TBitmapResource
• TGroupCursorResource
• TGroupIconResource
• TStringTableResource
• TVersionResource
• TResources
• TResourceFactory

Properties

Methods