Byte array to Signed integer in Delphi - delphi

Question

source array(4 bytes)
[$80,$80,$80,$80] =integer 0
[$80,$80,$80,$81] = 1
[$80,$80,$80,$FF] = 127
[$80,$80,$81,$01] = 128
need to convert this to integer.
below is my code and its working at the moment.
function convert(b: array of Byte): Integer;
var
i, st, p: Integer;
Negative: Boolean;
begin
result := 0;
st := -1;
for i := 0 to High(b) do
begin
if b[i] = $80 then Continue // skip leading 80
else
begin
st := i;
Negative := b[i] < $80;
b[i] := abs(b[i] - $80);
Break;
end;
end;
if st = -1 then exit;
for i := st to High(b) do
begin
p := round(Power(254, High(b) - i));
result := result + b[i] * p;
result := result - (p div 2);
end;
if Negative then result := -1 * result
end;
i'm looking for a better function?
Update:
file link
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0ByBA4QF-YOggZUdzcXpmOS1aam8/view?usp=sharing
in uploaded file ID field offset is from 5 to 9
NEW:
Now i got into new problem which is decoding date field
Date field hex [$80,$8F,$21,$C1] -> possible date 1995-12-15
* in uploaded file date field offset is from 199 to 203

Answer 1

Just an example of some improvements as outlined by David.
The array is passed by reference as a const.
The array is fixed in size.
The use of floating point calculations are converted directly into a constant array.
Const
MaxRange = 3;
Type
TMySpecial = array[0..MaxRange] of Byte;
function Convert(const b: TMySpecial): Integer;
var
i, j: Integer;
Negative: Boolean;
Const
// Pwr[i] = Round(Power(254,MaxRange-i));
Pwr: array[0..MaxRange] of Cardinal = (16387064,64516,254,1);
begin
for i := 0 to MaxRange do begin
if (b[i] <> $80) then begin
Negative := b[i] < $80;
Result := Abs(b[i] - $80)*Pwr[i] - (Pwr[i] shr 1);
for j := i+1 to MaxRange do
Result := Result + b[j]*Pwr[j] - (Pwr[j] shr 1);
if Negative then
Result := -Result;
Exit;
end;
end;
Result := 0;
end;
Note that less code lines is not always a sign of good performance.
Always measure performance before optimizing the code in order to find real bottlenecks.
Often code readability is better than optimizing over the top.
And for future references, please tell us what the algorithm is supposed to do.
Code for testing:
const
X : array[0..3] of TMySpecial =
(($80,$80,$80,$80), // =integer 0
($80,$80,$80,$81), // = 1
($80,$80,$80,$FF), // = 127
($80,$80,$81,$01)); // = 128
var
i,j: Integer;
sw: TStopWatch;
begin
sw := TStopWatch.StartNew;
for i := 1 to 100000000 do
for j := 0 to 3 do
Convert(X[j]);
WriteLn(sw.ElapsedMilliseconds);
ReadLn;
end.