[fpc-pascal] Any recommendations for a good in-memory storage type

[Graeme Geldenhuys]

Hi,

While implementing drag-n-drop support in fpGUI, I created a
TfpgMimeData class. This class will hold various data items, and a
mime-type describing each of the data items. Obviously the
TfpgMimeData class should be able to handle any data type. So my
question is, what is a good universal type to store all kinds of data
(strings, images (binary data), sound etc)?

The possible ideas I can think of is the following:

  TByteArray
  Variants
  TMemoryStream

So which one would be more fitting for any mime types, or is there
another option I didn't think of?  Here is a simple usage example of
the TfpgMimeData class - to help put this in perspective:


var
  m: TfpgMimeData;
  d: TfpgDrag;
  a: TfpgDropAction;
begin
      m := TfpgMimeData.Create;
      m.SetData('text/plain', 'My name is Earl');
      m.SetData('text/html', 'My name is <b>Earl</b>');  // text/plain
can actually be created from this automatically
      m.SetData('image/png', MyPNGImage);

      d := TfpgDrag.Create(self);
      d.MimeData := m;
      d.StartDrag([daCopy]);

      // d manages the lifespan of m
      // d will be freed automatically when drag action is complete or cancelled
end;


-- 
Regards,
  - Graeme -


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