DelphiDabbler's Blog

And finally ... after a few updates to reflect the release of Delphi 13 Florence , last but not least we have an update to CodeSnip . This program can test compile snippets with any Delphi compiler installed on the host computer, along with Free Pascal. But every time there's a new Delphi release CodeSnip has to be modified to be able to use it. I wish there was a config file to update, but it's not that simple with this ancient code base! So, CodeSnip 4.27.0 knows about the existence of Delphi 13, can use it for test compilation, can record the results of such compilations in its databases and can emit code that selectively turns warnings on and off for the compiler. That's the only new feature of this release. The docs and help file have been suitably updated. ➣  Download the v4.27.0 release from GitHub . BTW the first time you run this new version after installing Delphi 13, CodeSnip will notice and will offer to configure itself to use the new compiler, unless you'v...

The second thing I did after the release of Delphi 13,  after updating my website , was to enable the unit-scope look-up program, DUSE , to create a new mapping of all the units used by Delphi 13 to their unit scopes. This is easy to do: Having clicked  OK  then Save And Close  DUSE will read the names of all library units installed with Delphi 13. A new "mapping" named Delphi 13 Florence is created and you can select it whenever you're using Delphi 13: You can switch to any other mappings you may have created at any time: you can see the ones I've made in the above image. ➣ Download DUSE v0.3.2 from GitHub For help using DUSE, see the mini-help section of the program's read-me file. By the way, the code in DUSE that finds a given Delphi installation is very similar to that discussed in my article  How to programatically detect installed versions of Delphi . And finally, I used Delphi 13 to compile this new version of DUSE.

Now that Delphi 13 Florence is out, I've updated delphidabbler.com to bring relevant pages up to date. The changes are: The Delphi Version Numbers page has been updated with relevant information about Delphi 13. The most notable change is that the product version has now been brought into line with the compiler version, internal version and defined symbol. This means the product version has jumped from Delphi 12's version 29 to 37. The Delphi Version Features page has had numerous additions relating to features introduced in Delphi 13. If you know of any more please tell me by raising a new issue on GitHub (no C++ stuff though!). Article #27 (How to programatically detect installed versions of Delphi)  has been updated to include Delphi 13 in the list Delphi versions than can be detected. The notable change is that, due to the change in version numbering noted above, the registry key for Delphi 13 has changed similarly. For e.g. Delphi 12's key is  \Software\Embarcader...

The new feature currently planned for release in the forthcoming Delphi 13 that I'm most excited about is the inline if statement. According to Marco Cantu's blog post , the new syntax is like this: X := if Left < 100 then 22 else 45; Another use is something like this: ShowMessage(if Odd(X) then 'odd' else 'even'); The values returned from the then and else parts must be of the same or compatible type. Apart from being really chuffed that this feature is being added I'm just as happy that the syntax is Pascal like, and is therefore more readable than the cryptic C style ?: construct. Also pleasing is the fact that Embarcadero have gone with version number 13 instead of being ridiculously superstitious! Since Delphi 13 has yet to be released the usual disclaimer applies that this feature is not guaranteed to be included.

I just heard from Ian Barker @ Embarcadero that some Delphi and C++ Builder Community Edition users have been receiving messages that their CE license was expiring. Unfortunately, when they went to renew, they would get an unhelpful reply which didn't renew their license (and incorrectly mentioned a trial period). That issue should now be solved. If you've had that problem then hou should go to the relevant one of the following links which should let you successfully renew your CE license for another year: https://www.embarcadero.com/products/delphi/starter/free-download https://www.embarcadero.com/products/cbuilder/starter/free-download If you still have problems, please contact Embarcadero direct, not me! There's no news yet about when the next Community Edition will be released or what version of RAD Studio it will be based on. It's currently the equivalent to Delphi 12.1 / C++Builder 12.1.

Yesterday the first release of my new console application, BogBat v0.1.0 was released. I wanted a program to replace templates (or placeholders) in a text file with values from a data file. I didn't need anything fancy such as loops, conditionals, built in text processing functions or white space control. Only simple replacement was needed. And the name, well it's the Bog Bas ic t emplate program. The reason I wanted this program was to help automate some program builds by automatically updating version numbers and dates in source files. To be honest I'd started writing this program in a private GitHub repo in 2023 and forgotten all about it. Upon stumbling across it the other day I decided to finish it and make the repo public. Anyhow, here it is. All the usual warnings about early release code apply: bugs likely, command line and functionality subject to change across v0.x releases. The program takes two input files, one containing the templated text and another contai...