Function overloading by return type?
has a very detailed answer on the rational on function overloading by return type, and from what I can see Delphi does not allow this, but are there any workarounds to overload a function based on different return type in Delphi?
The implicit and explicit conversion operators for records permit overloading by return type: namely, the type being converted to:
type
TFoo = record
class operator Implicit(const AFoo: TFoo): Integer;
class operator Implicit(const AFoo: TFoo): string;
end;
Depending on the context, using a value of type TFoo
will call the appropriate implicit conversion. If trying to use a value of type TFoo
as an argument to an overloaded routine that can take either Integer or string in that position, an overload error will occur:
test.pas(33) Error: E2251 Ambiguous overloaded call to 'Q'
+ Test.pas(19) Related method: procedure Q(Integer);
+ Test.pas(24) Related method: procedure Q(const string);
You can take the "result" as a parameter.
procedure Blah( InVar : word; out OutVar : Byte ); overload;
procedure Blah( InVar : word; out OutVar : String ); overload;
I took the above idea and implemented it in a tokenreader used for importing data.
Each token is a string, which is then converted to the appropriate type.
The code needed for converting to integer and string is at the bottom of the post.
To read and convert a token only the following code is needed:
Myvalue := DataImporter.ImportToken;
Depending on the type of Myvalue, the correct implicit conversion is triggered.
The code:
TTokenValue = record
public
FValue:string;
constructor Create(const AValue:string);
class operator Implicit(const AFoo:TTokenValue): integer;
class operator Implicit(const AFoo:TTokenValue): string;
end;
Implementation
function TDataImporter.ImportToken: TTokenValue;
begin
result := TTokenValue.Create(GetCurrentToken());
end;
constructor TTokenValue.Create(const AValue: string);
begin
FValue := AValue;
end;
class operator TTokenValue.Implicit(const AFoo: TTokenValue): integer;
begin
result := strtointdef(AFoo.FValue, 0);
end;
class operator TTokenValue.Implicit(const AFoo: TTokenValue): string;
begin
result:=AFoo.FValue;
end;