I have this problem: if I have, for example, these values: 'AA', 'AB', 'AC', 'BC' - can I define MyType that can contain only these values?
I want to do in mode that:
type MyType = ... ; // something
var X: MyType;
begin
x := 'AA' ; // is valid, 'AA' is included in X
X := 'SS' ; // not valid, 'SS' not is included in X, than raise an exception.
end;
How can I solve it? Is there some solution directly using type data?
This is actually rather simple using operator overloading.
Do
type
TMyType = record
private
type
TMyTypeEnum = (mtAA, mtAB, mtAC, mtBC);
var
FMyTypeEnum: TMyTypeEnum;
public
class operator Implicit(const S: string): TMyType;
class operator Implicit(const S: TMyType): string;
end;
implementation
class operator TMyType.Implicit(const S: string): TMyType;
begin
if SameStr(S, 'AA') then begin result.FMyTypeEnum := mtAA; Exit; end;
if SameStr(S, 'AB') then begin result.FMyTypeEnum := mtAB; Exit; end;
if SameStr(S, 'AC') then begin result.FMyTypeEnum := mtAC; Exit; end;
if SameStr(S, 'BC') then begin result.FMyTypeEnum := mtBC; Exit; end;
raise Exception.CreateFmt('Invalid value "%s".', [S]);
end;
class operator TMyType.Implicit(const S: TMyType): string;
begin
case S.FMyTypeEnum of
mtAA: result := 'AA';
mtAB: result := 'AB';
mtAC: result := 'AC';
mtBC: result := 'BC';
end;
end;
Now you can do
procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
var
S: TMyType;
begin
S := 'AA'; // works
Self.Caption := S;
S := 'DA'; // does not work, exception raised
Self.Caption := S;
end;