Convenient list to decide what to put in your version control system: Delphi File Extensions – Delphi Programming.
–jeroen
Archive for the ‘Delphi 1’ Category
Which Delphi extensions to (not) put in version control: Delphi File Extensions – Delphi Programming (via Delphi.wikia.com)
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/12/10
Posted in Delphi, Delphi 1, Delphi 2, Delphi 2005, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi 3, Delphi 4, Delphi 5, Delphi 6, Delphi 7, Delphi 8, Delphi x64, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi XE4, Delphi XE5, Delphi XE6, Delphi XE7, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »
Delphi: removing “unused” units from uses lists cannot be fully automated (via: SO)
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/11/11
One of the things a lot of Delphi users want is to be able to automagically remove unused units from their uses lists and projects.
The short answer is: you can’t.
The long answer starts with: you can’t fore a number of reasons.
Similar reasonings hold for many other development environments. Plain Windows EXEs and DLL dependencies. .NET projects and assembly dependencies, etc.
Initialization/Finalization dependency
The first reason is that each unit (module, assembly, or other dependency) can contain global code to be executed at unit start/load or finish/unload.
So even though you do not reference anything inside that unit, the initialization and finalization sections can be run.
Removing the dependency from your units and project, kills that functionality. And might break all sorts of things.
Load order dependency
Sometimes you have subtle load order dependencies of units. Those should be rare, and if they are there, should be enforced by the affected units themselves. But everyone knows those subtle dependencies are more often a by product not enforced by anything than coincidence.
So if you start removing references, the load order might change, and subtle bugs may occur.
In other words: test, test, test and test your codebase before and after removing unit references from uses lists.
Parsing
If you understands the dependencies of initializtion/finalization or load order, you will get interested to know what units are actually being used.
The ultimate source for this would be the Delphi compiler. Bad luck here: you cannot use it as the IDE and command-line interfaces don’t offer a hook to it to do just this.
So you need alternative parsers that can help out. The answers to How to remove unused units from all source files on Delphi XE2 describe a few and they all have the same drawback: they are not the Delphi compiler, so they are a rough approximation of what the compiler would do.
And even if the approximation would be perfect, they all suffer from the same thing the compiler suffers from: you can only have one set of conditional defines, platforms, etc at the same time.
There is lots of code for which the usage is conditional, but where the uses list does not reflect this.
Fazit
Optimizing uses lists to eliminate unused units seems a simple thing at start, but isn’t.
The best way to keep those optimized is to prune them while developing. So if you remove code, try to remember cutting down the uses lists by hand.
And then test, test, test and test your codebase.
–jeroen
via: ide – How to remove unused units from all source files on Delphi XE2? – Stack Overflow.
Share this:
Posted in Delphi, Delphi 1, Delphi 2, Delphi 2005, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi 3, Delphi 4, Delphi 5, Delphi 6, Delphi 7, Delphi 8, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi XE4, Delphi XE5, Delphi XE6, Delphi XE7, Development, Software Development | 8 Comments »
Delphi: RandomizeIfNeeded
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/10/07
Calling Randomize too often can make your Random numbers even less random.
Sometimes having the Randomize call in a unit initialization section is not practical.
Hence this little method that I think I first wrote back in the Turbo Pascal days:
procedure RandomizeIfNeeded();
begin
if RandSeed = 0 then
Randomize();
end;
–jeroen
Share this:
Posted in Delphi, Delphi 1, Delphi 2, Delphi 2005, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi 3, Delphi 4, Delphi 5, Delphi 6, Delphi 7, Delphi 8, Delphi for PHP, Delphi x64, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi XE4, Development, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal | 7 Comments »
JEDI.INC got updated a few months ago: Delphi XE7 seems to be ahead…
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/08/22
While updating a project to a more recent version of Delphi, I also updated the JEDI.INC reference.
Note that since writing Delphi – finding the VERxxx define for a particular Delphi version: use JEDI.INC, the Delphi JEDI project moved from SoureForge to GitHub.
The fun thing: JEDI.INC got updated a few months ago to support Delphi XE7 provisionally.
Given the Delphi release cycle of twice a year, the Delphi Carpathia aka XE7 rumours this summer, I presume Delphi XE7 is near because of:
- The Source Forge RadStudioDemos trunk activitiy (based on my previous SF activity post).
- The root URL of the Delphi XE7 docwiki to become active.
- The mentioning of Delphi XE7 launch events at this Google Plus thread.
By then the list of Delphi Versionen | Delphi-Treff will likely also be updaed.
I’m anxious to see if the (Dutch + English) BIG Delphi Conference organized by Barnsten and Blaise from September 11-12 in the Netherlands will be part of the launch tour.
Anyway: here is the JEDI.INC portion with defines: Read the rest of this entry »
Share this:
Posted in Delphi, Delphi 1, Delphi 2, Delphi 2005, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi 3, Delphi 4, Delphi 5, Delphi 6, Delphi 7, Delphi 8, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi XE4, Delphi XE5, Delphi XE6, Delphi XE7, Development, Software Development | 6 Comments »
The dreaded with… Debugging today, I found another gotcha (: – via: Lars Fosdal
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/08/12
In the With Statement series:
Lars Fosdal – Code Rants
Debugging today, I found another gotcha.
In this case, both Self and DisconnectedClient has a property named ClientIdentifier.
Note the difference for the mouse-over and the evaluation.
–jeroen
Share this:
Posted in Appmethod, Borland Pascal, Delphi, Delphi 1, Delphi 2, Delphi 2005, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi 3, Delphi 4, Delphi 5, Delphi 6, Delphi 7, Delphi 8, Delphi x64, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi XE4, Delphi XE5, Delphi XE6, Delphi XE7, Development, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal, With statement | Leave a Comment »
The StackOverflow Pascal/DelphiSyntax Highlighter
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/07/22
Found out where the StackOverflow Pascal has its origins: What happened to comments in syntax highlighter? – Meta Stack Overflow.
Like any syntax highlighter, it is not perfect (only a Delphi compiler driven highlighter would have a chance to be perfect), but it does a pretty good job and gets better over time.
–jeroen
Share this:
Posted in Borland Pascal, Delphi, Delphi 1, Delphi 2, Delphi 2005, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi 3, Delphi 4, Delphi 5, Delphi 6, Delphi 7, Delphi x64, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi XE4, Development, FreePascal, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal | Leave a Comment »
Delphi `with` post and discussion revisited (via: wiert.me and LinkedIn)
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/06/11
A bit more than a year ago, I wrote about Delphi: you should avoid the with statement as it makes your code less future proof. That caused some nice comments on the blog, and some more on LinkedIn where Paul Foster mentioned it in a thread ‘Jeroen Pluimers makes a case against “with” statements.‘ Both interesting reads, especially the reasons that people use or avoid with, or keep its use in balance. There is one set of comments I want to emphasize: refactoring multiple with statements into a one function and a call per former with. Read the rest of this entry »
Share this:
Posted in Borland Pascal, Delphi, Delphi 1, Delphi 2, Delphi 2005, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi 3, Delphi 4, Delphi 5, Delphi 6, Delphi 7, Delphi 8, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi XE4, Development, Pascal, Software Development, Turbo Pascal, With statement | 19 Comments »
Delphi multithreading and DLL exports: watch your exceptions (via: Stack Overflow)
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/06/03
Talking about Danny Thorpe: he also posted a nice hint on threading methods for ancient Delphi versions that equally applies to DLL exports in any Delphi version, even any programming environment.
Recently, I had to do some surgery in such a Pre-Delphi 6 application, and I was really happy to remember this answer: it instantly solved some process crashes, and the added logging allowed for investigating the actual cause.
Note that this tip isn’t just a good advice for old Delphi versions.
Even in younger Delphi versions, you have to watch methods that can be called from outside a regular Delphi context, for instance exported methods.
Heck, it applies to virtually any development environment: exceptions usually are very specific to that environment and should never cross a process boundary.
Summary
Take the approach below
- for Execute methods in your own thread classes in Delphi 5 or earlier
- for any method that can be called externally (like DLL exports) Read the rest of this entry »
Share this:
Posted in Delphi, Delphi 1, Delphi 2, Delphi 2005, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi 3, Delphi 4, Delphi 5, Delphi 6, Delphi 7, Delphi 8, Delphi x64, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi XE4, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »
Delphi: Design-Time Component Name Limited to 63 characters (via: Vin Colgin – Google+)
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/05/05
I learned something new today (thanks Vin Colgin) the Delphi Design-Time Component Name is Limited to 63 characters.
Uwe Raabe found out that this an Object Inspector thing due to this constant in DesignIntf.pas:
const MaxIdentLength = 63;
It has been probably there since Delphi 1 and has been documented on-line since at least Delphi 2007.
I remember having had long (like 100+ character) identifiers in source code, but not in the Object Inspector.
Now I know you can’t (:
–jeroen
via: Vin Colgin – Google+ – Delphi: Design-Time Component Name Limited to 63 characters….
Share this:
Posted in Delphi, Delphi 1, Delphi 2, Delphi 2005, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi 3, Delphi 4, Delphi 5, Delphi 6, Delphi 7, Delphi 8, Delphi x64, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi XE4, Delphi XE5, Delphi XE6, Development, Software Development | 4 Comments »
delphi: idioms for building strings (via: my answer on Stack Overflow)
Posted by jpluimers on 2014/04/16
Once every while, one of your StackOverflow answers gets an edit suggestion that is really valuable.
This case it was Edwin Yip who suggested to emphasize the difference between TStringBuilder and TStringList (adding characters versus lines).
Too bad that freshly 10k user Makoto showed he hates bold emphasis, intentional property casing and post signatures by removing the added value (there is so much emphasis he could remove on other answers to warrant at least a day time job).
I know that not all emphasis is welcomed at StackOverflow, but in this case I think it added real value.
So I edited my own answer to add even more value: showing the idioms I use for building strings, and now it is time to quote it: Read the rest of this entry »
Share this:
Posted in Delphi, Delphi 1, Delphi 2, Delphi 2005, Delphi 2006, Delphi 2007, Delphi 2009, Delphi 2010, Delphi 3, Delphi 4, Delphi 5, Delphi 6, Delphi 7, Delphi 8, Delphi x64, Delphi XE, Delphi XE2, Delphi XE3, Delphi XE4, Development, Software Development | Leave a Comment »
The Wiert Corner - irregular stream of stuff 