Ok, my reaction is a bit late, but here's a solution for the newer Delphi's.
It uses implicit class overloaders so that records of this type can be used as if they are TDateTime variables.
TDateRec = record
year,month,day,hour,minute,second,millisecond:word;
class operator implicit(aDateRec:TDateRec):TDateTime;
class operator implicit(aDateTime:TDateTime):TDateRec; // not needed
class operator implicit(aDateRec:TDateRec):String; // not needed
class operator implicit(aDateRec:String):TDateRec; // not needed
end;
Implementation:
uses DateUtils;
class operator TDateRec.Implicit(aDateRec:TDateRec):TDateTime;
begin
with aDateRec do // Yeah that's right you wankers. I like "with" :)
Result := encodeDateTime(Year,Month,Day,Hour,Minute,Second,Millisecond);
end;
class operator TDateRec.Implicit(aDateTime:TDateTime):TDateRec;
begin
with Result do
DecodeDateTime(aDateTime,Year,Month,Day,Hour,Minute,Second,Millisecond);
end;
class operator TDateRec.Implicit(aDateRec:TDateRec):String;
begin
Result := DateTimeToStr(aDateRec)
end;
class operator TDateRec.Implicit(aDateRec:String):TDateRec;
begin
Result := StrToDateTime(aDateRec)
end;
Now you can declare your dates like this:
const
Date1:TDateRec=(Year:2009;month:05;day:11);
Date2:TDateRec=(Year:2009;month:05;day:11;hour:05);
Date3:TDateRec=(Year:2009;month:05;day:11;hour:05;minute:00);
To see if it works, execute the following:
ShowMessage(Date1); // it can act like a string
ShowMessage(DateToStr(Date1)); // it can act like a date
If you really want to replace all your TdateTime variables with this, you probably need to overload some other operators too (Add, subtract, explicit, ...).
