[fpc-pascal] Re: Variant vs Pointer

[Marcos Douglas]

On Sat, Mar 3, 2012 at 1:20 PM, Ludo Brands <ludo.brands at free.fr> wrote:
>> > Or define an internal storage format and convert the
>> different types
>> > to that format. That is also what variants are doing. The
>> difference
>> > is that variants have pre-defined assignment routines and
>> conversions
>> > between the different variant types which don't always fit what you
>> > want (date formats, decimal points, precision, characters
>> set, etc.).
>> > Assign fe. 1.2 to a variant and it will store it as a
>> double while you
>> > perhaps meant a 32 digit precision numeric value.
>>
>> I'm thinking to use JSON (TJSONData and subclasses) or at
>> least the same idea. Could you give an example to use a
>> internal storage format? Do you talk about Pointer and conversions?
>>
>
> When you are thinking of using JSON you can use AnsiString as the internal
> format eventually adding a datatype tag to avoid conversion data loss as
> much as possible.
> I have never used TJSONData before but used a homebrewn json implementation
> to transfer arbitrary database data.

Well, if I will use JSON, I can use TJSONData for this job because it
have all conversions types were implemented.

>> >> If Variant is so bad, why TParam is implemented using it?
>> >>
>> >
>> > That is a very good question. Delphi compatibility is probably the
>> > answer.
>> >
>> > Just look at the VarFmtBCD custom variant format created to fit the
>> > higher precision numeric data types and all the
>> difficulties to get it
>> > right.
>> >
>> > Ludo
>>
>> Well, TParams in Delphi works fine.
>> My new class will works with DBMS data format (integer,
>> varchar, etc) very similar with TParams (I inherited of
>> TParams, at the moment) with more functionalities.
>>
>> The TParams class, AFAIK, should work well with DBMS data
>> format, don't?
>>
>
> Again, the higher precision numeric and decimal datatypes as used in fe.
> Oracle are poorly supported with variants. If higher precision numerics,
> date/time formats, decimal points and other locale related conversions
> aren't an issue for you, and if you don't want strict compile time type
> checking, please do use variants.

Thanks for these tips.
I will use the JSON implementation in fpjson unit.

Marcos Douglas