Create an alias for a referenced namespace

Question

In C# one can add an "alias" to a reference. For example

using xyz = Microsoft.Office.Interop.Excel;

and then in code one could simply refer to the class as xyz.Method

Can one do something similar in the Delphi uses clause? eg.

//This is just an example
uses
  System.IOUtils As xyz;

The reason for asking is that both System.IOUtils & FMX.Objects contain TPath which means that one needs to type out the full namespace if both classes are used. It would be useful to simply have an alias name.

Answer 1

As far as I know, you can define unit aliases only in Project Options. This you can set if you open it through the menu Project / Options (or simply by pressing CTRL + SHIFT + F11) and there on the first page you can specify unit aliases to the Unit aliases collection for the selected target build configuration in the format alias=namespace.unit like shown on this picture:

Answer 2

If you want to create an alias for a type (and not for all the namespace), you can use the following code (I wrote it to explain your situation)

uses
  System.IOUtils, FMX.Objects;

procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
type
  TIOPath = System.IOUtils.TPath;
  TFMXPath = FMX.Objects.TPath;
var
  FMXPath: TFMXPath;
begin
  ShowMessage(TIOPath.GetExtension('sample.txt'));
  FMXPath := TFMXPath.Create(self);
  try
    // Use the FMXPath
  finally
    FMXPath.Free;
  end;
end;

The aliased types can be declared in a common unit and included everywhere you need it.