Hi,

I'm reading about variable initialization
(http://www.freepascal.org/docs-html/ref/refse22.html) . Can I initialize class field too? Like in Java:

type
  TMyClass = class
  private
    FSomeField: Integer = 123;
end;

I always initialize this in overrided constructor, but above example is much faster.

Regards.

Object Pascal currently does not support this, except maybe for static class variables. The compiler people should confirm this.

Michael.

It doesn't work in any case currently. You can post a feature request on the bug tracker, but there is no promise that it will be implemented.

Regarding "fastness": Depending on how this feature would be implemented it can be even slower than just setting the fields by hand in the constructor: As the initializations need to be done by assigments nevertheless they can either be done in an extra (hidden) method which is called from all constructors of that class (leads to next topic: inheritance) or the code to initialize the fields can be added to all constructors; another possiblitiy would be to let NewInstance call the compiler generated virtual "InitFields" method... in two of the three possibilities one or more method calls (maybe even virtual) are involved.

Regards,
Sven

I think the fast point from OP point of view is the less typing, less source code. Not from executable point of view.

leledumbo wrote

I think the fast point from OP point of view is the less typing, less source code. Not from executable point of view.

Might be, but as there are people that are complaining about class instance initialization speed (the instance's memory is initialized using FillChar) I wanted to mention this.

Regards,
Sven

In our previous episode, leledumbo said:

I think the fast point from OP point of view is the less typing, less source code. Not from executable point of view.

Hmmm, makes me wonder when typing became the limiting factor in programming :-)

[OT]
Ideal programming Language (ObjectPascal 10.1?), reduced typing.

Program AnyProgram;
begin
  MyPrgram := TMyProgram.Create(ReadMyMindAndCreateWhatIWantNow);
end.

Write Once, Build Different Things Any Time, Any OS, Any Platform...

Bart

In our previous episode, Bart said:

Actually, from experience, that isn't even enough. What you want at the beginning is often irrelevant. What you want is the endresult of after you went through the whole development trajectory :-)