[fpc-devel] published versus advanced rtti

[Michael Van Canneyt]

On Fri, 23 Oct 2026, Martin Frb via fpc-devel wrote:

> Afaik the published keywords only purpose is to add RTTI (or do nothing, 
> depending on $M).
>
> Afaik using advanced rtti (I haven't done yet) you can add RTTI to other 
> fields too?

Yes.

>
>
> If so, is there any difference in the result?

Yes. Extended RTTI is put in separate tables, although we try to re-use
existing data for published property RTTI.

>
>
> The reason for asking is that this is under discussion for adding Dwarf 
> representation. Originally based on the idea to mark published fields. But 
> since other language have rtti too, using the name "published" would be to 
> limiting (as Pascal only). So the idea now is to add a flag, that a field has 
> rtti => in Pascal to be used to point out published.

... and when extended RTTI is present ?

> If advanced RTTi is effectively the same as published (albeit possible with 
> extended info), then its likely going to be the one flag. If there are 
> reasons where the difference between published and advanced needs to be 
> known, then this may be the time to make it known.

The means of accessing the info is different, so it is probably necessary to
have 2 flags.


Michael.