Question

I am trying to declare a constant array for validating type properties held by input object. but i am doing something incorrect, please have a look at below code:

// Record to hold Name-Value pair for checking entities  
TValues = record  
  Name : WideString;  
  Value : Variant;  
end;  

const  
 coarrType1Properties : array[0..5] of TValues =  
 (  
  (Name : 'HARDWARE'; Value : TRUE),  
  (Name : 'SOFTWARE'; Value : TRUE),  
  (Name : 'TAG'; Value : TRUE),  
  (Name : 'AUTHORIZED'; Value : TRUE),  
  (Name : 'ID'; Value : 700),  
  (Name : 'CODE'; Value : 0)  
 );  

but I am getting delphi compile time error for type value i.e. This type cannot be initialized. How to prevent this error? Or can we have alternate solution etc. Please assist…

Answer 1

For these (Boolean, Integer) and other simple types, you could initialize with TVarData and typecast back to Variant:

type
  TValues = record
    Name: WideString;
    Value: TVarData;
  end;

const
  coarrType1Properties : array[0..5] of TValues = (
    (Name: 'HARDWARE'; Value: (VType: varBoolean; VBoolean: True)),
    (Name: 'SOFTWARE'; Value: (VType: varBoolean; VBoolean: True)),
    (Name: 'TAG'; Value: (VType: varBoolean; VBoolean: True)),
    (Name: 'AUTHORIZED'; Value: (VType: varBoolean; VBoolean: True)),
    (Name: 'ID'; Value: (VType: varInteger; VInteger: 700)),
    (Name: 'CODE'; Value: (VType: varInteger; VInteger: 0))
  );

procedure Test;
var
  I: Integer;
begin
  for I := Low(coarrType1Properties) to High(coarrType1Properties) do
    Writeln(Format('coarrType1Properties[%d]: ''%s'', %s', [I, coarrType1Properties[I].Name, VarToStr(Variant(coarrType1Properties[I].Value))]));
end;