Delphi. How to get a pointer to a dynamically created object

Question

I would like to access components via pointers instead of searching using FindComponent. The following assignment works for components placed on the Form, but not for dynamically created components. For example:

var
  Pbtn: ^TButton;
  Button2: TButton;

begin
  Pbtn := @Button1;
  Showmessage(pbtn.caption); // works well

  Button2 := TButton.Create(Form2);
  Pbtn := @Button2;
  Showmessage(pbtn.caption); // not work

...

Answer 1

A class type is a reference type, so object instances of a class type are already represented as pointers. Don't use ^/@ to refer to these objects (that will only refer to the pointers themselves, which is rarely ever needed in most situations), eg:

var
  Pbtn: TButton;
  Button2: TButton;
begin
  Pbtn := Button1;
  ShowMessage(pbtn.Caption); // works well

  Button2 := TButton.Create(Form2);
  Pbtn := Button2;
  ShowMessage(pbtn.Caption); // also works well
  ...