Ampersand

What is translated > Tokens > Ampersand

By means of an ampersand Delphi keywords can be used as identifiers, e.g. \Embarcadero\Studio\19.0\source\rtl\win\winrt\WinAPI.ShlObj.pas  line 11032:

type

  tagDROPDESCRIPTION = record 

    &type: TDropImageType;   

In such cases it is recommended either to let the pre-processor substitute such expressions or to modify the source code. Otherwise Delphi2C# simply ignores such ampersands, that means "&type" becomes "type". In that case the parser will stop at that position, because of the unexpected type keyword. If "&type" is substituted for example by "amps_type" everything works well. You even can let the translator make a second substitution from "amps_type" to "type", if you like. This substitution is made after "amps_type" has been recognized as an identifier.

There is a case where the same identifiers are used with and without the ampersand.

    TState = (Start, &Property, ObjectStart, &Object, ArrayStart, &Array, ConstructorStart, &Constructor, Closed, Error);

and e.g.

    if FCurrentState = TState.Property then

then the identifier notations should be defined in the file for the identifiers in a unique way, e.g.:

&Array

&Constructor

&Object

&Property

Array

Constructor

Object

Property

Another example is in  \Embarcadero\Studio\19.0\source\rtl\win\winrt\WinAPI.DataRT.pas  line 598:

property &Implementation: Xml_Dom_IXmlDomImplementation read get_Implementation;

\rtl\win\winrt\WinAPI.Devices.pas line 6078:

property &Function: Word read get_Function;

\rtl\win\winrt\WinAPI.CommonTypes.pas line 138/439/544/6163...

&End

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