RTTI controls

This page describes the package RunTimeTypeInfoControls in <lazarusdir>/components/rtticontrols/.

RTTI controls extend many LCL controls by the ability to directly connect to published properties of classes. They greatly reduce writing boring code, by automatically loading/saving data between LCL controls and published properties. In fact, you can create fully functional forms without writing any code at all.

In combination with Streaming components you can reduce the amount of code needed for connecting the program Data with the GUI and the Disk/Network to a minimum.

Testing Components

The RTTI controls are very useful when writing/testing a component.

• Drop the component onto a form
• Drop an RTTI control onto the form
• Set the RTTI component's Link.TIObject property to your component
• Set the RTTI component's Link.TIPropertyName (from the drop-down list) to the property
• You can now edit the property interactively and see the effects of your changes at runtime (and sometimes designtime; depending on the component)
• Each RTTI control will try to invoke the appropriate property editor for your chosen property.

So for instance, if the property is a StringList type, the RTTIButton would bring up the StringList editor, the RTTIMemo would display it - all without writing a line of code!

See Also

• explanation on RTTI for delphi that can apply to Free Pascal too
• Runtime Type Information (RTTI)
• RTTI tab
• explanation on RTTI controls in Lazarus

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From the Free Pascal wiki, page "RTTI controls", as it stood on 2020-06-10 after a change by Eric69, out of the wiki's dump of 2024-05-26. Copyright stays with the author who wrote it, according to the old wiki's Licensing page. If you have concerns about this material, message the admin.