How to properly free records that contain various types in Delphi at once?

by

Assuming you have a Delphi version that supports implementing methods on a record, you could clear a record like this:

type
  TSomeRecord = record
    field1: integer;
    field2: string;
    field3: boolean;
    procedure Clear;
  end;

procedure TSomeRecord.Clear;
begin
  Self := Default(TSomeRecord);
end;

If your compiler doesn’t support Default then you can do the same quite simply like this:

procedure TSomeRecord.Clear;
const
  Default: TSomeRecord=();
begin
  Self := Default;
end;

You might prefer to avoid mutating a value type in a method. In which case create a function that returns an empty record value, and use it with the assignment operator:

type
  TSomeRecord = record
    // fields go here
    class function Empty: TSomeRecord; static;
  end;

class function TSomeRecord.Empty: TSomeRecord;
begin
  Result := Default(TSomeRecord);
end;

....

Value := TSomeRecord.Empty;

As an aside, I cannot find any documentation reference for Default(TypeIdentifier). Does anyone know where it can be found?

As for the second part of your question, I see no reason not to continue using records, and allocating them using dynamic arrays. Attempting to manage the lifetime yourself is much more error prone.

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