Predefined symbol to select between Lazarus and Delphi - delphi

I am looking for a predefined symbol to write a code like that:
{$IFDEF LAZARUS}
// code compiles by fpc/lazarus
{$ELSE}
// code compiles by delphi
{$ENDIF}

Use FPC
{$IFDEF FPC}

For GUI applications afaik the "LCL" symbol is defined inside Lazarus projects. In this case it probably won't matter.
In general, for bigger codebases, I would avoid having too much ifdef FPC/LCL and ifdef in your sourcecode though. It makes adding an exception or other version harder.
Use a system like JCL and Zeos(7) are using, where you give most differences an own name (like "USE_FPCUNIT" or "USE_DUNIT") and link these to versions in a central includefile.
For a short treatise on the subject see http://www.stack.nl/~marcov/porting.pdf (chapter 2)
P.s. I would consider Pocketstudio, TP,GPC,VP and WDSybil (and whatever I forgot) dead for most practical purposes and the bytecode variants Canterbury Pascal/Component Pascal/Oxygene/Prism/Delphi.NET incompatible (most are more Oberon than Pascal anyway). That pretty much leaves Delphi, Kylix and FPC to worry about.

Related

compiler option for setting Default calling convention?

I kind of recall that in Turbo Pascal or early Delphi versions there were options to make functions calling convention not register by default but any other type.
Maybe i mistake it for {$W+} or {$STACKFRAMES ON} option, which affects functions prologue and epilogue as well.
I do not want to use pascal pre-processors, but if i could change default convention for some unit it could be useful to me.
Free Pascal has the $calling directive:
http://www.freepascal.org/docs-html/prog/progsu7.html#x13-120001.1.7
It's typically used to fix old units that have assembler routines with assumptions
about calling convention built in to them.
It cannot be done. The default calling convention cannot be modified by compiler options.

Can I undefine a conditional in the command line?

In the help of Delphi 7 command line compiler, I just see an option to define a conditional compiling directive:
-D<syms> = Define conditionals
Is it possible to undefine a conditional?
I have defined DEVELOPMENT in the IDE, and want to have define just PRODUCTION in the command line compiler. The problem is that the command line compiler keeps the IDE definitions. I'd like just to undef it as is possible in the C world.
If you don't come up with a command line option, you can always add additional conditionals in your units or include file like this:
{$DEFINE FOO}
// Allow us to undefine foo at the command line by defining UNDEFFOO
{$IFDEF UNDEFFOO}
{$UNDEF FOO}
{$ENDIF}
{$IFDEF FOO}
...
{$ENDIF}
Then use -D to set UNDEFFOO.
You can use {$UNDEF NAME} to undefine a symbol, equivalent to #undef in C and C++. The facility to undefine a conditional is only applicable at a unit level and cannot be applied project wide. In other words you cannot unset conditionals at the command line. This is no different from the facilities offered by C or C++ toolsets.
A very common approach is to locate all your conditional definitions in a shared .inc file which is then included at the head of every source file that relies on those definitions. If you arrange things this way then you have all the flexibility that you need.
I know it will be of little consolation, but more recent Delphi versions have much stronger support for configuration management. Modern Delphi versions make use of the msbuild system. They allow the same configuration options to be used in the IDE and on the command line. There is flexibility to define, for example, debug and release build options and switch between them easily. I know I find it a great reassurance to know, for sure, that I am using the same build in the IDE as on the command line. I did not feel anywhere near so secure in legacy Delphi versions.

Delphi - unmangle names in BPL's

Is it possible to unmangle names like these in Delphi?
If so, where do I get more information?
Example of an error message where it cannot find a certain entry in the dbrtl100.bpl
I want to know which exact function it cannot find (unit, class, name, parameters, etc).
---------------------------
myApp.exe - Entry Point Not Found
---------------------------
The procedure entry point #Dbcommon#GetTableNameFromSQLEx$qqrx17System#WideString25Dbcommon#IDENTIFIEROption could not be located in the dynamic link library dbrtl100.bpl.
---------------------------
OK
---------------------------
I know it is the method GetTableNameFromSQLEx in the Dbcommon unit (I have Delphi with the RTL/VCL sources), but sometimes I bump into apps where not all code is available for (yes, clients should always buy all the source code for 3rd party stuff, but sometimes they don't).
But say this is an example for which I do not have the code, or only the interface files (BDE.INT anyone?)
What parameters does it have (i.e. which potential overload)?
What return type does it have?
Is this mangling the same for any Delphi version?
--jeroen
Edit 1:
Thanks to Rob Kennedy: tdump -e dbrtl100.bpl does the trick. No need for -um at all:
C:\WINDOWS\system32>tdump -e dbrtl100.bpl | grep GetTableNameFromSQLEx
File STDIN:
00026050 1385 04AC __fastcall Dbcommon::GetTableNameFromSQLEx(const System::WideString, Dbcommon::IDENTIFIEROption)
Edit 2:
Thanks to TOndrej who found this German EDN article (English Google Translation).
That article describes the format pretty accurately, and it should be possible to create some Delphi code to unmangle this.
Pitty that the website the author mentions (and the email) are now dead, but good to know this info.
--jeroen
There is no function provided with Delphi that will unmangle function names, and I'm not aware of it being documented anywhere. Delphi in a Nutshell mentions that the "tdump" utility has a -um switch to make it unmangle symbols it finds. I've never tried it.
tdump -um -e dbrtl100.bpl
If that doesn't work, then it doesn't look like a very complicated scheme to unmangle yourself. Evidently, the name starts with "#" and is followed by the unit name and function name, separated by another "#" sign. That function name is followed by "$qqrx" and then the parameter types.
The parameter types are encoded using the character count of the type name followed by the same "#"-delimited format from before.
The "$" is necessary to mark the end of the function name and the start of the parameter types. The remaining mystery is the "qqrx" part. That's revealed by the article Tondrej found. The "qqr" indicates the calling convention, which in this case is register, a.k.a. fastcall. The "x" applies to the parameter and means that it's constant.
The return type doesn't need to be encoded in the mangled function name because overloading doesn't consider return types anyway.
Also see this article (in German).
I guess the mangling is probably backward-compatible, and new mangling schemes are introduced in later Delphi versions for new language features.
If you have C++Builder, check out $(BDS)\source\cpprtl\Source\misc\unmangle.c - it contains the source code for the unmangling mechanism used by TDUMP, the debugger and the linker. (C++Builder and Delphi use the same mangling scheme.)
From the Delphi 2007 source files:
function GetTableNameFromSQLEx(const SQL: WideString; IdOption: IDENTIFIEROption): WideString;
This seems to be the same version, since I also have the same .BPL in my Windows\System32 folder.
Source can be found in [Program Files folders]\CodeGear\RAD Studio\5.0\source\Win32\db
Borland/Codegear/Embarcadero has used this encoding for a while now and never gave many details about the .BPL format. I've never been very interested in them since I hate using runtime libraries in my projects. I prefer to compile them into my projects, although this will result in much bigger executables.

What all APIs are affected by {$IOCHECKS OFF}?

We have some ancient Delphi code (might have even originated as Turbo Pascal code) that uses {$I-}, aka {$IOCHECKS
OFF}, which makes the code use IOResult instead of exceptions for disk I/O errors.
I want to get rid of the {$I-} and bring this code forward into the 1990s, but to do that, I'd like to know what all is affected by {$IOCHECKS OFF}. Does this only affect the crufty old built-in I/O functions like AssignFile / Reset / Rewrite / Append / CloseFile? Or does it affect more modern things like TFileStream as well? More importantly, what else might be affected that I'm not thinking of? (Delphi Basics suggests that it also affects MkDir and RmDir. If it affects those, there have to be more.)
The Delphi 2007 Help topic "Input output checking (Delphi)" (ms-help://borland.bds5/devcommon/compdirsinput_outputchecking_xml.html) says that this affects "I/O procedure[s]", and that "I/O procedures are described in the Delphi Language Guide." This doesn't help much, since CodeGear has never shipped a Language Guide, and the last time Borland shipped one was Delphi 5.
Which functions and classes behave differently under {$I-}?
EDIT: The accepted answer gives some great background, but here's the quick summary in alphabetized list form: {$IOCHECKS OFF} only affects the following routines from the System unit.
Append
BlockRead
BlockWrite
ChDir
CloseFile
Eof
Eoln
Erase
FilePos
FileSize
Flush
MkDir
Read
Readln
Rename
Reset
Rewrite
RmDir
Seek
SeekEof
SeekEoln
SetLineBreakStyle
Truncate
Write
Writeln
Since $I is a compiler directive, it can only affect compiler-generated code, and it can only affect code that actually gets compiled.
For those two reasons, it cannot affect things like TFileStream. It's a class in Classes.pas, which is a unit you don't compile. Any code in it is not affected by the $I directive. Furthermore, the compiler doesn't treat that class specially in any way. It's just another ordinary class.
The $I directive affects the language built-in functions that you've mentioned. The compiler generates calls to those functions specially. It also affects calls to write, writeln, and readln. It should also affect BlockRead and BlockWrite.
You can check the source code. Anything that calls SetInOutRes is susceptible to $I. That includes functions that open files (Append, Reset, and Rewrite), as well as anything else that accepts a parameter of type file or TextFile (Flush, BlockRead, BlockWrite, Erase, FilePos, Seek, FileSize, Read, Readln, Write, Writeln, Rename, Eof, SeekEof, Eoln, SeekEol, Truncate, SetLineBreakStyle, and CloseFile). Also, anything that calls InOutError (ChDir, MkDir, amd RmDir).
Notably absent from the list is AssignFile. That function doesn't actually do any I/O. It just sets up the file record so that Append, Reset, and Rewrite will know what to do.
I should point out that looking at the source code is just inference. The $I directive controls whether the compiler will insert calls to the __IOTest function in your own code after you call certain other functions. That function checks the value of InOutRes, and if it's not zero, it raises a run-time error (which may yield an exception if SysUtils is included in your program). We can't check the source code to directly find out what functions are affected by $I (since it's only called in compiler-generated code), so we're really just looking for which functions set InOutRes, with the assumption that they wouldn't bother doing that if they didn't know the compiler would check for it afterward.

Replace function units

I am writing a unit test infrastructure for a large Delphi code base. I would like to link calls to pure functions in SysUtils.FileExists for example to a "MockSysUtils.FileExists" instead.
Creating a SysUtils unit with the same interface is not appreciated by the compiler.
What I am thinking of is to hook in my mock function at runtime. Is this possible nowadays?
Any other suggestions?
Regards,
Peter
Replacing a function at runtime is difficult but usually technically possible. "All" you need to do is:
take the address of the function in question
disassemble the first 5 bytes or so (to check for a RET instruction - very small routines may abut another routine, preventing you from replacing it)
change its page protection (with VirtualProtect) to be writable
rewrite the first 5 bytes with a JMP rel32 instruction (i.e. E9 <offset-to-your-func>)
implement your version function as normal, making sure it has the same arguments and calling convention as the function you are mocking
An easier approach would be to link against a different version of SysUtils.pas. That will require you to also recompile all the units in the RTL and VCL that depend on SysUtils.pas, but it is likely quite a bit easier than the function intrumentation approach described above.
The easiest approach is the language-level one, where either you don't directly rely on SysUtils at all (and so can switch at a higher level), or you modify the uses declaration to conditionally refer to a different unit.
You can do it with MadCodeHook. Use the HookCode function, give it the address of the function you want to replace and the address of the function you want to be called instead. It will give you back a function pointer that you can use for calling the original and for unhooking afterward. In essence, it implements the middle three steps of Barry's description.
I think MadCodeHook is free for personal use. If you're looking for something freer than that, you can try to find an old version of the Tnt Unicode controls. It used the same hooking technique to inject Unicode support into some of the VCL's code. You'll need an old version because more recent releases aren't free anymore. Find the OverwriteProcedure function in TntSystem.pas, which is also where you'll find examples of how to use it.
Code-hooking is nice because it doesn't require you to recompile the RTL and VCL, and it doesn't involve conditional compilation to control which functions are in scope. You can hook the code from your unit-test setup procedure, and the original code will never know the difference. It will think it's calling the original FileExists function (because it is), but when it gets there, it will immediately jump to your mocked version instead.
You could also just add a unit that only contains the functions you want to mock to the test unit's uses clause. Delphi will always use the function from the unit that is listed last. Unfortunately this would require you to change the unit you want to test.
Your Mock-Sysutils unit:
unit MockSysutils;
interface
function FileExists(...) ...
...
end.
Your unit, you want to test:
unit UnitTotest;
interface
uses
Sysutils,
MockSysUtils;
...
if FileExists(...) then
FileExists will now call the version from MockSysutils rather than from Sysutils.
Thanks,
yes, it would be great to have TSysUtils class for example instead that I could inherit with my MockSysUtils. But, that is not the case and the code base huge. It will be replaced bit by bit, but I wondered if there was a quick-start solution.
The first approach is ok for one function perhaps, but not in this case I guess.
I will go for the second approach.
This is slightly way out there but here is another alternative.
When building your unit tests and your main codebase to go with it, you could grep all the functions you wish to replace and specify the unit to use
Instead of
fileexists(MyFilename);
you could grep fileexists and replace with
MockTests.fileexists(MyFileName);
If you did this at build time (using automated build tools) it could easily be done and would provide you with the greatest flexibility. You could simply have a config file that listed all the functions to be replaced.

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