Declare a TDateTime as a Const in Delphi

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, ...).

The only? possible way, but probably not what you are looking for:

const
{$J+}
  Expire: TDateTime = 0;
{$J-}

initialization
  Expire := EncodeDate(2009, 3, 23);