ftADT

ftADT = 26

Example

function IsAbstractDataType(Field: TField): Boolean;
begin
  Result := Field.DataType = ftADT;
end;

Usage

ftADT identifies a provider-defined abstract data type represented as a structured object field with named child fields.

Additional Technical Info

ftADT is ordinal 26 of TFieldType. Delphi maps it to TADTField, a TObjectField containing child Fields, indexed FieldValues and provider-supplied ObjectType metadata.

This is database structured data, not a PascalScript record declaration. Child names, order, nesting, Null behavior, update support and serialization come from the live field definition/provider. Inspect the child fields instead of converting the parent to an undocumented flat string or Variant array. Assignments can update multiple child values and therefore require an editable dataset and provider support.

Do not cache child field objects beyond their dataset/parent lifetime. Validate required children and preserve nested Nulls separately from a Null parent.

The example only inspects metadata and was source-reviewed; no structured-field, dataset, database, runtime or image test ran.

External references

• Embarcadero TFieldType and TADTField.
• Free Pascal TFieldType compatibility reference; ADT provider parity is not implied.

Created 2026-07-15