Depending on the actual type of T, I want to return a specific value; here a simplified example (a record wrapper around some object):
function TMyRec.TryGet<T>(const Default: T): T;
begin
if TypeInfo(T) = TypeInfo(TMyObject) then
Result:= FMyObject {E2010 Incompatible types}
else Result:= FMyObject.TryGet<T>(Default);
end;
It's clear that I cannot assign anything other than T
to Result
, and as T
or T()
don't work, when T
is not restricted to class
...
It's also not possible to do an overload which differs only in the generic restriction:
function TryGet<T: TMyObject>(const Default: T): T; overload;
{...}
Result:= FMyObject as T; {here it would work}
To help understand the discussion in the comments below, here is the example from before my edit:
function TMyRec.TryGet<T>(const Default: T): T;
begin
if TypeInfo(T) = TypeInfo(TMyObject) then Result:= FMyObject
//else ...
else Result:= Default;
end;
The only way I found is using System.Rtti.TValue
(exception if wrong type):
Result:= TValue.From(FMyObject).AsType<T>
or much shorter ;-) with automatic type (returns false if wrong type; you could ignore that here because you already checked TypeInfo):
TValue.From(FMyObject).TryAsType(Result)
Suggestion: rethink your concept; there are concerns that generics might not be a good solution, but we cannot tell without knowing more about the background.