[fpc-pascal] 2.1.1 new protected

[Mattias Gaertner]

Recently the behaviour of the 'protected' keyword has changed in fpc 2.1.1.
Now I wonder how can I fix the code, that depends on this.

I have some base classes, that defines methods to let derived classes interact.
These methods should not be accessed directly from the outside, so they are protected. But this does not work any longer. Of course I can safely typecast, but for aesthetic reasons it looks pretty bad coding style to typecast a class to the wrong class. For example:

-- unit1 -------------------------
  TMyClass = class
    FFlag: boolean;
  protected
    procedure InternalSetFlag(b: boolean);
  end;

-- unit2 -------------------------
  TDescendantClass1 = class(TMyClass)
  public
    procedure CallProtectedMethod(AnObject: TMyClass);
  end;

  TDescendantClass2 = class(TMyClass)
  end;

procedure TDescendantClass1.CallProtectedMethod(AnObject: TMyClass);
begin
  InternalSetFlag(true); // allowed
  AnObject.InternalSetFlag(true); // not allowed any longer
  TDescendantClass1(AnObject).InternalSetFlag(true); // allowed and works, but ugly
end;
-------------------------------


Any idea?


Mattias