[fpc-pascal] How to use generics and meta class?

[Sven Barth]

Am 27.02.2014 13:37, schrieb Sven Barth:
> Am 27.02.2014 12:12, schrieb Joao Morais:
>> Em 25/02/14 05:14, Sven Barth escreveu:
>>> A generic is by definition not a fully existant type.
>>
>> Plans to include generics as a real type for class attributes? 
>> Something like the Java world:
>>
>> generic TMyGeneric<T: TMyType>  <<-- this is the real type
>> specialize TMyGeneric<TSomeDescendantType>  <<-- only for type 
>> safety, discarded after compiling
> No, because generics in FPC/Delphi work more like templates in C++ 
> than generics in Java/.Net (in these two it works, because of their 
> "everything is an object" approach, we don't have that in Pascal).
Addendum: this does not exclude the compiler from trying to optimize 
this if the type parameter is indeed a class type. But this will be 
transparent for the user and will have a few restrictions. It does 
however not change that generics aren't full types.

Regards,
Sven