GUYS I HAVE FINALLY SOLVED IT!!!

Ok, to recap what I'm talking about for anyone just coming in. Yesterday I raised an issue with the Set keyword clashing with generics in TwinBASIC. Writing generic classes that perform assignments internally created situation where a generic class could not work for both classes and non-classes like Longs, Strings etc as the generic type. This was because assignment between class type variables needed to be performed with the Set keyword and assignment between non-class types must be performed without them. There was no way to perform an assignment that works with both types of assignment.

After much discussion in this thread about it, Wayne Phillips pointed out that I could use IsObject to test whether a variable was an object or not and the program can use that information to decide how to perform the assignment. I tried it and it seemed to work in a little scratch pad application I wrote to specifically test it. I thought I had a workable solution. I went into what I was actually using this for which is a List(Of T) and HashTable(Of String,TValue) implementation I'm working on which is going to be 100% written in TwinBASIC code with no external dependencies. When I went back to the List(Of T) code to implement the IsObject solution, it failed. Turns out that for some reason it doesn't work when the assignments involved arrays of type T. Having already spent the better part of the day already on this, I was too burnt out to start this all over again in an attempt to figure out why arrays are now a problem.

The overall problem was that the TwinBASIC compiler is determined not to allow assignments to be perform with the wrong statement, Let for non-objects variable and Set for object variables. If the compile even smells a possibility of this happening, it will complain. I did come up with a way around it by using a bunch on pointer tricks but they are just curiosities. These tricks are only good for showing off and not good for actual use. I went to bed last night defeated. I wrote it off generics as usable until this thing with Set could be sorted out.

But for some reason when I got up today, I decided to give it one more try and I don't know if it was the sleep I needed or what but in 5 minutes, I came up with a way to solve this problem entirely by removing Set from the equation altogether and it didn't involve any fancy tricks with pointers or anything like this. Turns out you can bypass Set completely with a very easy method. Use a function like this:-
Code:
    Private Sub SetVarValue(ByRef varToSet As Variant, ByVal value As Variant)
        varToSet = value
    End Sub
I'm not even sure why that works as well as it does but it works. That function will allow you to perform an assignment to a variable regardless of if an Object is being assigned or not. Here is the full test program:-
Code:
Module MainModule

    ' This project type is set to 'Standard EXE' in the Settings file, so you need a Main() subroutine to run when the EXE is started.
    Public Sub Main()
        
        Dim objVal As TestClass = New TestClass
        Dim strVal As String = "BOO!"
        Dim lngVal As Long = 29
        
        Dim objVar As TestClass
        Dim strVar As String
        Dim lngVar As Long
        
        SetVarValue(objVar, objVal)
        SetVarValue(strVar, strVal)
        SetVarValue(lngVar, lngVal)
        
        Debug.Print objVar.Value
        Debug.Print strVar
        Debug.Print lngVar
        
    
    End Sub
	
    Private Sub SetVarValue(ByRef varToSet As Variant, ByVal value As Variant)
        varToSet = value
    End Sub

    
End Module

Private Class TestClass
    
    Public Sub new()
        
    End Sub
    
    Public Property Get Value() As String
        Return "Class Property Value"
    End Property
    
End Class
I popped that into the List(Of T) class I'm writing and it works. The List(Of T) class can now work with both class and non-class types with no problem. And it has no problem working with arrays.