Delphi should let me use a const array reference as a constant

[PiedSoftware 3]

type
  TCodeStructure = record
    StartTkn: string;
    EndTkn: string;
    SubTkns: array of string;
  end;

type TIfTkns = (itElse, itElsif);

const elseTkn  = '#else';
      elsifTkn = '#elseif';
      IfTkns: array[TIfTkns] of string = (elseTkn, elsifTkn);

  IfStruct: TCodeStructure =
    (StartTkn: '#if';
     EndTkn:   '#endif';
     SubTkns: [IfTkns[itElse], IfTkns[itElsif]]); 

I wrote this code and got the error "E2026 Constant expression expected" on the last line.

I also tried 

SubTkns: IfTkns);

 

When I changed it to 

SubTkns: [elseTkn, elsifTkn]);

it compiled happily.
and that gave me E2010 Incompatible types: 'Dynamic array' and 'Array'.

To me it seems that Delphi should allow the first thing I tried - referencing a const array via constant indices to specify a constant. There is no reason to disallow that sort of thing. Ideally even the second attempt should be reasonable.

I have Delphi 10.4.

Edited March 25 by PiedSoftware

[PeterBelow 218]

A typed constant (that's what your IfTkns constant is) is actually implemented as a compiler-initialized variable, and that's the reason you cannot use it as a constant expression. It may be counter-intuitive but that's the way it works and you have to live with it.

[David Heffernan 2300]

There's all sorts of things that Delphi should allow as constants, but that's a long known area of significant weakness in the language. 

[PiedSoftware 3]

Yes, David, I agree. I would like them to fill that out: everything that is logically able to be evaluated at compile time should be assignable to a constant.

[David Heffernan 2300]

7 hours ago, PiedSoftware said:

Yes, David, I agree. I would like them to fill that out: everything that is logically able to be evaluated at compile time should be assignable to a constant.

We'd all like that. Prospects are not good for it happening.

[PiedSoftware 3]

I guess I am a bit spoiled playing with Swift. It lets you assign any expression to a constant, compile time or run time.

Edited April 1 by PiedSoftware

[Ian Barker 17]

On 4/1/2024 at 12:54 AM, PiedSoftware said:

expression to a constant, compile time or run time

A constant you can assign at run time? Is that a one-off thing - assign once and then it's immutable? If not, then it's a variable, not a constant or have I misunderstood?

[DelphiUdIT 132]

3 minutes ago, Ian Barker said:

A constant you can assign at run time? Is that a one-off thing - assign once and then it's immutable? If not, then it's a variable, not a constant or have I misunderstood?

Constant when you write the code, variable when the code is running

[pmcgee 10]

That wouldn't be strange in C++ ... 

int i = 42;

int main()
{
   const int  j = i; 
   const int* p = &j;
}

Edited April 6 by pmcgee

[Stefan Glienke 1905]

1 hour ago, Ian Barker said:

A constant you can assign at run time? Is that a one-off thing - assign once and then it's immutable? If not, then it's a variable, not a constant or have I misunderstood?

Imagine you could write this code in Delphi:

 

var
  i: Integer = 42;
begin
  const j = i;
  Writeln(j);
end.

Oh, wait, you can.

 

Too bad that the syntax is not really clean as it mimics the const declaration using the equal sign while it really is what other languages call immutable variable and thus should have used the assign operator but people with even less expertise in programming language design than me disagreed.

[DelphiUdIT 132]

In Delphi is allowed to change typed const, look here ... simple, if the relative option is set. Never used ... is terrible...

 

Edited April 5 by DelphiUdIT

[Brandon Staggs 185]

43 minutes ago, DelphiUdIT said:

In Delphi is allowed to change typed const, look here ... simple, if the relative option is set. Never used ... is terrible...

 

https://stackoverflow.com/a/49060/2501336

[DelphiUdIT 132]

22 minutes ago, Brandon Staggs said:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/49060/2501336

Oh yes, I remember something about Delphi7 ... but now these things should never be present, neither like options ... a code refactoring is a must.

We are talking in these days about safe memory .... and there are still those "options".

 

But this is my personal opinion.

 

[PiedSoftware 3]

The way Swift works is that you can declare value with either the keyword let or the keyword var. If you use let the value cannot be changed. But the expression you assign to a let value can be anything available at that point.