[fpc-devel] Thoughts on being able to declare "pointer-to-type" parameters directly in method signatures?

[Ryan Joseph]

> On Jun 9, 2019, at 8:11 PM, Dmitry Boyarintsev <skalogryz.lists at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> Is it because parameter types are doesn't really match a type definition. 
> One can't do
>   function myFunc(var a: record a,b: integer; end): integer;
> the record type has to be declared separately. 
> or
> declaring
>   function myFunc(var a: array of integer): integer;  
> is 100% not the same as 
>   TArrayType = array of Integer;
>   function myFunc(var a:  TArrayType  ): integer;    
> 

What if static array and record types were the exception? I agree it looks bad using anonymous records in parameters but pointers makes perfect sense to me. I think simply allowing pointers (and perhaps dynamic arrays) covers 99% percent of use cases.

Personally I’ve had to write dummy types more than once in order to get around this design problem. If I had to guess I’d say this is just a historical relict the didn’t stand up to the test of time.

Regards,
	Ryan Joseph