[fpc-pascal] Optional param modifier

[Ryan Joseph]

> On Apr 12, 2019, at 2:55 PM, Marco van de Voort <fpc at pascalprogramming.org> wrote:
> 
> I think the same as when I read the suggestion for an inout variant of VAR. Move this out of the language syntax, and make it directives or attribute like syntax (like we will need to get anyway for const ref).

Example please? I didn’t know there were alternatives to parameter modifiers.

> 
> As to the functionality itself, IMHO it is a solution in search of a problem. Yes, it theoretically nails down the contract a bit more, but I rarely expect that this makes programming in pascal any easier.

What do you do about the problem of not knowing when a parameter of a 3rd party function can accept null? That alone is an annoying little detail that arises often and requires looking at the code comments or manuals. Same situation with functions results, I often don’t know if the result could be nil and I perform a check just to make sure. Having the function itself document this would be helpful and a compiler error would be even more helpful.

Having said that I admit to not using “const” and almost regret its introduction because now programers use it everywhere, even when not needed. Constref on the other hand was a great addition and “out” and “var” are obviously needed.

Btw a little off topic, the reason I don’t use const is because it doesn’t do the one thing I want it to, i.e. ensure members are not modified in a function. In the example below why doesn’t const give me an error when I try to assign to the “x” member variable? That’s the one reason I want const and it doesn’t even do that one thing! Grrr. Maybe we need another modifier, “realconst". :)

type
  TMyRecord = record
    x: integer;
  end;
  PMyRecord = ^TMyRecord;

procedure DoThis(const p: PMyRecord); 
begin
  p.x := 10;
end;


Regards,
	Ryan Joseph