Learning to make my own classes

[Skrim 11]

I have never made my own classes before and I have just started to learn.

 

There is one field FName in the class below. What if I have 50 different Fxxxxx? Do I have to write Setter and  Getter for every field?

 

Can I declare a record inside the class?

 

Type
  TEmployee = class
    private
      FName : string;
      //FSalary : Currency;
      Function GetName : string;
      Procedure SetName(Const Value : string);
    public
      Property Name : string read GetName write SetName;
  end;

implementation

{$R *.dfm}

Function TEmployee.GetName: string;
begin
  Result:=FName;
end;

Procedure TEmployee.SetName(const Value: string); 
begin
  if value='' then
    raise Exception.Create('Name must have a value');
  FName:=value;
end;

Edited 23 hours ago by Skrim

[dummzeuch 1613]

If it's only about reading and writing values to the fields, there are two options:

 

1. Make the fields themselves public (and omit the 'F' prefix). If you later decide some of these fields should be properties, you can simply change the class without having to change the code that's using it.

type
  TEmployee = class
  public
    Name: string;
  end;

2. Instead of having read and write accessor methods, declare the properties to directly access the fields: 

type
  TEmployee = class
  private
    FName: string;
  public
    property Name: string read FName write FName;
  end;

 

Edited 9 hours ago by dummzeuch

[David Heffernan 2406]

1 hour ago, dummzeuch said:

If it's only about reading and writing values to the fields, there are two options:

 

1. Make the fields themselves public (and omit the 'F' prefix). If you later decide some of these fields should be properties, you can simply change the class without having to change the code that's using it.

 

type

  TEmployee = class

  public

    Name: string;

  end;

 

2. Instead of having read and write accessor methods, declare the properties to directly access the fields: 

 

type

  TEmployee = class

  private

    FName: string;

  public

    property Name: string read FName write FName;

  end;

 

Where does the exception get raised? 

[Remy Lebeau 1554]

1 hour ago, David Heffernan said:

Where does the exception get raised? 

In his example, nowhere.  You would need a setter for that.

[Remy Lebeau 1554]

3 hours ago, Skrim said:

There is one field FName in the class below. What if I have 50 different Fxxxxx? Do I have to write Setter and  Getter for every field?

If they all have different names/types, then yes (provided you need getters/setters at all - see dummzeuch's examples).

 

But, if they are all related, eg Name1, Name2, etc then you can use an indexed property instead, eg:

Type
  TEmployee = class
    private
      FNames[0..49] : string;
      Function GetName(Index: Integer) : string;
      Procedure SetName(Index: Integer; const Value : string);
    public
      Property Names[Index: Integer] : string read GetName write SetName;
  end;

implementation

{$R *.dfm}

Function TEmployee.GetName(Index: Integer): string;
begin
  Result := FNames[Index];
end;

Procedure TEmployee.SetName(Index: Integer; const Value: string); 
begin
  if Value = '' then
    raise Exception.Create('Value must not be empty');
  FNames[Index] := Value;
end;

Alternatively, you could do something like this:

const
  EmployeeNameIdx := 0;
  EmployeeEmailIdx := 1;
  ...

Type
  TEmployee = class
    private
      FValues[0..49] : string;
      Function GetValue(Index: Integer) : string;
      Procedure SetValue(Index: Integer; const Value : string);
    public
      Property Name : string read GetValue write SetValue index EmployeeNameIdx;
      Property Email : string read GetValue write SetValue index EmployeeEmailIdx;
  end;

implementation

{$R *.dfm}

Function TEmployee.GetValue(Index: Integer): string;
begin
  Result := FValues[Index];
end;

Procedure TEmployee.SetValue(Index: Integer; const Value: string); 
begin
  if Value = '' then
    raise Exception.Create('Value must not be empty');
  FValues[Index] := Value;
end;

Quote

Can I declare a record inside the class?

Yes, eg:

Type
  TEmployee = class
    private
      ...
    public
      type
        TDetails = record
          ...
        end;
      ...
    end;

 

Edited 19 hours ago by Remy Lebeau

[dummzeuch 1613]

12 hours ago, David Heffernan said:

Where does the exception get raised? 

Nowhere, as you noticed correctly. I should not try to answer any forum posts when reading on my mobile phone. I simply missed that part of the setter method. (And on the phone apparently syntax highlighting is also not possible 😞 )

 

One could argue though, that, if the name should not be empty, it should be initialized in the constructor and possibly not even have a setter at all.

 

But if the property should be writable, it could be done in a setter method but still without requiring a getter method:

 type
  TEmployee = class
  private
    FName: string;
  public
    property Name: string read FName write SetName;
  end;
  
procedure TEmployee.SetName(const Value: string); 
begin
  if value='' then
    raise Exception.Create('Name must have a value');
  FName := value;
end;