TMetaClass is the C++Builder representation of the Object Pascal class-reference type. The TMetaClass for a given class can be acquired by using the __classid operator.
TMetaClass allows operations to be performed directly on classes. This contrasts with class types, which can be instantiated as objects and which allow operations to be performed on those instances.
A variable of type TMetaClass can be NULL, which indicates that the variable does not currently reference a class.
Every class inherits (from TObject) a method function called ClassType, which returns a reference to the class of an object. The type of the value returned by ClassType is TClass (TMetaClass*), which is a pointer to a TMetaClass.
The methods of TMetaClass correspond to the static methods of TObject. They have the same functionality but differ in parameters. Whereas the TObject methods take a TClass (TMetaClass*) as the first parameter, this parameter is implicit in the TMetaClass methods.