Visual RPG 8.2 and above support the consumption of generic types and generic methods, which opens the door to using all generic collection classes in the Systems.Collections.Generic namespace.  Generics are a feature of the .NET framework, and defer the data type until they are used.  They allow the code to remain the same; however the data tpe of the parameters can change with each use. 

The advantages of using generics is that they enforce type consistency at compile time; not at run-time; and eliminate the need for casting at runtime, making programming errors easier to catch.   They also make it clear what type of object a generic type can handle.

Using Generic Types

The syntax for using generic types is:

      <type name > ( *Of<list of types> )

      e.g.  List(*Of Customer)

 

A generic type can be used in the following:

    1.  In any place a type is used in AVR; e.g. as a parent class:

     BegClass MyClass Extends( Dictionary( *Of *integer4, *string))

   2.   As a field type, such as:

     DclFld MyFld type( List(*Of PurchaseOrder))

         - or- as the type of a BegFunc, DclSrParm, DclArray, etc

Calling Generic Types

The syntax for calling generic methods is:

      <method name>( *Of<list of types>) (<method parms>)

      e.g.  CreateList( *Of *integer4)( 1i, 2i, 3i, 4i)

See Also

Setting Project Designer Properties