Clarification please regarding OnFreeNode handling for strings etc

[gwideman]

The OnFreeNode event Help doc mentions: "You should however finalize the data in such a case if it contains references to external memory objects (e.g. variants, strings, interfaces)."

Could we get a more explicit description or example of how to handle this? Does it mean calling Finalize on each individual dynamically-allocated field? Or is it possible to call a single function (possibly Finalize), passing the entire data record?

I am not 100% sure from the Embarcadero doc how to do this. The example page "System InitializeFinalize (Delphi) shows:

  PPerson = ^TPerson;
  TPerson = record
    FFirstName: String;
    FLastName: String;
    FAge: Integer;
  end;
[...]
  GetMem(Person, SizeOf(TPerson));
  Initialize(Person^);
[...]
Finalize(Person^);
FreeMem(Person);

For the TVirtualStringTree node data, I think we skip GetMem and Initialize, but in OnFreeNode we have to:

pNodeData := vst.GetNodeData(Node);
Finalize(pNodeData^);

... and I think the FreeMem is unnecessary and should not be called.

Is all that right?

Thanks.

[livius2]

Simply turn on System.ReportMemoryLeaksOnShutdown:= true; in Form OnCreate and check results with and without FreeMem

[joachimmarder]

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