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Owner

function Owner: TPersistent;

Example​

function CollectionHasOwner(const Items: TCollection): Boolean;
begin
  Result := Items.Owner <> nil;
end;

Usage​

Returns the TPersistent owner reported by a collection without transferring ownership.

Parameters and result

It has no parameters. The result is a live TPersistent reference or nil and remains owned by the surrounding object graph.

Behaviour

  • Nil is a valid result for an unowned/base collection.
  • Owner is not necessarily a TComponent and is not necessarily a Velox module.
  • The returned reference can become invalid when the Velox owner is destroyed.
  • Reading it does not add a reference count or extend lifetime.

Errors and edge cases

Calling on nil raises an object-reference failure. The method itself has no not-found exception; callers must test a nil result before dereferencing.

Additional Technical Info​

Owner is a script-visible method declared on hidden ancestor TCollection. Visible descendant classes inherit it even though Classes/Common is intentionally omitted from the Velox and Docusaurus Code Library menus.

Owner exposes the persistent object returned by the collection's virtual owner hook. Base TCollection normally reports nil; owned/embedded descendants can return the object that contains the collection.

Implementation trace

PascalScript binds to Delphi TCollection.Owner. Studio 37.0 simply returns GetOwner, allowing descendant classes such as owned collections to override that protected virtual source.

Side effects and ownership

Read-only and no ownership transfer. Never free the result merely because this method returned it.

Performance and concurrency

O(1) plus any descendant GetOwner implementation. No thread-safety or lifetime guarantee is added.

Remarks

This entry describes the installed Delphi Studio 37.0 terminal reached by the Velox-modified PascalScript registration. Free Pascal is linked for compatible Object Pascal context; where implementations differ, the traced Delphi behaviour above is authoritative. The example is source-reviewed and non-destructive except where the named operation is inherently destructive.

Related entries

External references

Created 2026-07-15