What is the difference between RttiType.TypeKind and RttiType.Name?

Question

What is the semantic difference between:

RttiType.TypeKind and RttiType.Name ?

I ask because couldn't one in principle infer the TypeKind from the Name?

Answer 1

The TypeKind and Name properties of TRttiType are completely different things.

• TypeKind tells you what sort of type you have. This can be one of the 23 different options define in the TTypeKind enumerated type.
• Name tells you which type you have. This is a string and there are an unlimited number of possible values.

Different types will (usually) have different names, but may have the same TypeKind. For example consider this simple demonstration.

program RttiDemo;

{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}

uses
  Rtti;

procedure Main;
var
  Context: TRttiContext;
  TObjectType, TInterfacedObjectType: TRttiType;
begin
  TObjectType := Context.GetType(TObject);
  TInterfacedObjectType := Context.GetType(TInterfacedObject);
  Writeln(TObjectType.Name);
  Writeln(TInterfacedObjectType.Name);
  Assert(TObjectType.TypeKind=TInterfacedObjectType.TypeKind);
end;

begin
  Main;
  Readln;
end.

The output is:

TObject
TInterfacedObject

So, you cannot infer the type kind from the type name since kind and name are quite different things.