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Archive for June 12th, 2013

Delphi XE4 Update 1 is out (via: Installing the Platform Assistant on a Mac – RAD Studio)

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/06/12

Over the last couple of days, I was asking myself

“wow, the docwiki has been updated for the Delphi XE4 update 1 version of the Mac edition of the Platform Assistant, how long until the official update is out?”

These URLs from Installing the Platform Assistant on a Mac – RAD Studio didn’t work for a couple of days:

Now they do!

The reason is that yesterday Embarcadero released 29446 Update 1 for Delphi, C++Builder and RAD Studio XE4 that fixes lots of stuff: Fix list for Update 1 for RAD Studio XE4, Delphi XE4 and C++Builder XE4.

Note it is not referring to Readme – Help Update 1 for Delphi and C++Builder XE4 – RAD Studio which got released last week as 29436 Help Update 1 for Delphi, C++Builder and RAD Studio XE4. It is the real Delphi XE4 Update 1.

The cool thing: finally it is a binary patch. Not fast about as fast as a full uninstall/reinstall), but at 336 megabytes a much smaller download than the 3.7 gigabytes of 29451 Delphi XE4 and C++Builder XE4 ISO (including Update 1).

Patched update versus full uninstall/install is a trade off:

  • Patch can take a couple of hours, and is CPU bound (too bad most of it is bound to a single CPU core)
  • Uninstall/reinstall is disk-speed and disk-size bound (make sure you have 15+ gigabytes free; an SSD improves this process a lot)

altd, ftpd, keeping off-line downloads Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in Delphi, Delphi XE4, Development, Software Development | Tagged: , | 2 Comments »

Delphi XE4: installer batch file for “experimental GExperts + code formatter for Delphi XE4”

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/06/12

Slightly more than a month ago, Thomas MĂŒller release the experimental GExperts + code formatter for Delphi XE4.

Since there is no official GExperts for Delphi XE4 build yet, his installation instructions include this:

Use the ExpertManager tool to register GExperts to Delphi XE4.

The thing is: ExpertManager is part of GExperts, so this introduces a “chichen-and-egg” situation.

So I wrote a small batch file and a bit of documentation to install it.

Just in case you cannot download that SVN changeset easily, here are the documentation and batch-file:

Documentation

Steps to install:
0- Quit Delphi XE4
1- Download the GExperts XE4 experimental from http://blog.dummzeuch.de/2013/04/28/experimental-gexperts-code-formatter-for-delphi-xe4/
2- Recursively unpack that download
3- Copy the batch file Install-GExperts-XE4-experimental–run-as-administrator-from-ExpertManager.exe-directory.bat into that directory
4- From that directory, run the copied Install-GExperts-XE4-experimental–run-as-administrator-from-ExpertManager.exe-directory.bat
5- Run Delphi XE4
6- Check if GExperts is installed

Batch file

:: check if user is administrator

  "C:\Windows\system32\cacls.exe" "C:\Windows\system32\config\system" 1>nul 2>&1  && (goto :isAdmin)
:isNoAdmin
  echo you need to be Administrator, and (when under Vista or higher) run this using using UAC
  goto :exit

:isAdmin

:: Gets the right link for x86 (32-bit) program files
IF /I %PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE% == amd64 goto :x64
IF /I %PROCESSOR_ARCHITEW6432% == amd64 goto :x64
goto :x86
:x64
   :: OS is 64bit
   set ProgramFilesX86=%ProgramFiles(x86)%
  goto :continue
:x86
   :: OS is 32bit
  set ProgramFilesX86=%ProgramFiles%
  goto :continue

:continue

:: create the right directory and copy the files

  setlocal

  set TargetDirectory=%ProgramFilesX86%\GExperts for RAD Studio XE4

  mkdir "%TargetDirectory%"
::  set FilesToCopy=DbugIntf.pas ExpertManager.exe GExperts.chm GExpertsDebugWindow.exe GExpertsGrep.exe regularexpert\GExpertsRSXE4.dll Readme.txt preview.pas
  set FilesToCopy=ExpertManager.exe GExperts.chm regularexpert\GExpertsRSXE4.dll preview.pas

  for %%f in (%FilesToCopy%) do copy /y %%f "%TargetDirectory%\"
  set RegFile="%TargetDirectory%\ExpertsXE4.reg"
::  explorer /select,"%TargetDirectory%\GExpertsRSXE4.dll"

:: expand backslash into double backslash for .REG file
  set ExpertTarget="%TargetDirectory%\GExpertsRSXE4.dll"
  set ExpertTarget=%ExpertTarget:\=\\%

::Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
::
::[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Embarcadero\BDS\11.0\Experts]
::"GExperts"="C:\\Program Files (x86)\\GExperts for RAD Studio XE4\\GExpertsRSXE4.dll"
::
  echo Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00 >%RegFile%
  echo. >>%RegFile%
  echo [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Embarcadero\BDS\11.0\Experts] >>%RegFile%
  echo "GExperts"=%ExpertTarget% >>%RegFile%
  echo. >>%RegFile%
::  explorer /select,%RegFile%
  regedit /S %RegFile%

  endlocal

  goto :exit

:exit

–jeroen

via: experimental GExperts + code formatter for Delphi XE4 « twm’s blog.

Posted in Batch-Files, Delphi, Delphi XE4, Development, Scripting, Software Development | 2 Comments »

Crap: the outsourcing party of the client wrote C-code like this in 2005, and nobody scrutinized it

Posted by jpluimers on 2013/06/12

I was involved in a big project migrating a complex stack from Windows XP to Windows 7 x86, and got scared this !@#$ out of me.

The stack communicated to WebSphere MQ on AS/400 from Windows, and on the Windows side of things consisted of a UI developed in in Cool:Gen, a C interface to a Delphi DLL, which takes care of the communication to WebSphere MQ.

Digression:

This all was histerically grown. In the beginning (early to mid 90s last century) it was a big Borland Pascal/Turbo Pascal application – running on DOS, Windows 3.1x, Windows 95 and OS/2 2.x/3.0 – that talked over a propriatary layer over SNA to AS/400.
The vendor of that layer didn’t respond to a request for Windows NT 4.x compatibility, and meanwhile some client applications were about to be developed in Delphi.

So in 1997/1998 – together with a great AS/400 software developer – I wrote a SNA based APPC/CPI-C communication layer in Delphi 3 that could be accessed from both Turbo Pascal (using a file based interface) and Delphi (using an object interface).
The DOS interface was an executable around the Delphi interface, which was a set of classes.

Delphi part

The Delphi part of the DOS interface was centered around FindFirstChangeNotification/CreateProcess combined with MsgWaitForMultipleObjects/WaitForSingleObject to make the waiting as efficient as possible.

DOS part

DOS part

The DOS part of the Delphi interface was centered around this piece to make waiting efficient:

asm
  int $28
  mov ax, $1000
  int $15 { DESQview/TopView give up time slice }
  mov ax, $1680
  int $2F
end;

Thanks to the RBIL: Ralf Brown’s Interrupt List (there are now multiple HTML versions of it), it makes use of these tricks so DOS applications can efficiently wait : Read the rest of this entry »

Posted in C, CVS, Delphi, Delphi 2006, Delphi 3, Delphi 5, Delphi XE2, Development, Dimensions CM by Serena, MKS Integrity, Software Development, Source Code Management | 3 Comments »

 
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