I'm adding strings with objects (also strings) to a TComboBox, but getting corrupted strings when trying to retrieve them later.
This is how I'm adding them:
var
i: Integer;
sl: TStringList;
c: Integer;
s: PChar;
begin
for i := 1 to tblCalls.FieldCount do
if tblCalls.Fields[i - 1].Tag = 1 then
ListBox1.Items.Append(tblCalls.Fields[i - 1].FieldName);
sl := TStringList.Create;
try
LoadStyles(TStrings(sl));
for c := 0 to sl.Count - 1 do
begin
s := PChar(sl.Values[sl.Names[c]]);
ComboBox1.Items.AddObject(sl.Names[c], TObject(s));
end;
finally
sl.Free;
end;
end;
procedure LoadStyles(var AStylesList: TStrings);
var
f, n: String;
filelist: TStringDynArray;
begin
f := ExtractFilePath(ParamStr(0)) + 'Styles';
if (not DirectoryExists(f)) then
Exit;
filelist := TDirectory.GetFiles(f);
for f in filelist do
begin
n := ChangeFileExt(ExtractFileName(f), EmptyStr);
AStylesList.Add(n + '=' + f);
end;
end;
..and this is where I'm trying to retrieve a string object:
procedure TfrmOptions.ComboBox1Change(Sender: TObject);
var
si: TStyleInfo;
i: Integer;
s: String;
begin
i := TComboBox(Sender).ItemIndex;
s := PChar(TComboBox(Sender).Items.Objects[i]);
Showmessage(s); // --> Mostly shows a corrupted string (gibberish chars)
if (TStyleManager.IsValidStyle(s, si)) then
begin
if (not MatchStr(s, TStyleManager.StyleNames)) then
TStyleManager.LoadFromFile(s);
TStyleManager.TrySetStyle(si.Name);
end;
end;
I suspect that its something with the way I'm adding them. Perhaps I need to allocate memory at:
s := PChar(sl.Values[sl.Names[c]]);
Not sure. Looking at the help on StrNew, NewStr and StrAlloc, it says that those functions are deprecated. Can you help point out whats wrong?
There's nothing to keep the string alive. When you write:
s := PChar(sl.Values[sl.Names[c]]);
an implicit local variable of type string is created to hold whatever sl.Values[sl.Names[c]] evaluates to. That local variable goes out of scope, as far as the compiler is aware, nothing references it, and the string object is destroyed.
In fact, it's even worse than that. Because the assignment above happens in a loop, there is only one implicit local variable. Each time round the loop, the string that you asked the combo box to remember is destroyed.
You need to find a way to extend the lifetime of the string. You could do it like this:
var
StrPtr: ^string;
....
for c := 0 to sl.Count - 1 do
begin
New(StrPtr);
StrPtr^ := sl.Values[sl.Names[c]];
ComboBox1.Items.AddObject(sl.Names[c], TObject(StrPtr));
end;
Then when you need to access the string you can do so like this:
var
StrPtr: ^string;
....
TObject(StrPtr) := TComboBox(Sender).Items.Objects[i];
// do something with StrPtr^
When you clear the combo box you must also run through each item and call Dispose on the pointer.
Having said that, it's going to be much easier not to do it that way. Stop trying to force strings into the TObject data associated with each item. Instead keep a parallel string list containing these strings. When you need to look up a name look it up in that list rather than in the combo box.
I know this is an old question but I came across this problem again and rather than use the separate string list I used an object with a string value (I think someone suggested it in a comment) as follows:
Declare a type as TObject with a string value:
TStringObject = class(TObject)
StringValue : string;
end;
Then when adding your items declare a local var of TStringObject and create a new instance for each item:
var
strObj : TStringObject
begin
...
for c := 0 to sl.Count - 1 do
begin
strObj := TStringObject.Create;
strObj.StringValue := sl.Values[sl.Names[c]];
ComboBox1.Items.AddObject(sl.Names[c], strObj);
end;
And when retrieving the values:
s := TStringObject(TComboBox(Sender).Items.Objects[i]).StringValue;
As #Dejan Dozet mentions in the comments - you should always free the data objects before freeing the TStringList!
i have this problem: starting from an empty list (0 elements) i want check if an element is present or not present in this list. In case this record not is present in list then i add this record to list, otherwise update element in list.
I have tried writing this code:
program Project1;
{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}
{$R *.res}
uses
System.SysUtils, System.Generics.Collections, System.Generics.Defaults;
type
TDBStats = record
Comb: Integer;
Freq: Integer;
end;
TDBStatsList = TList<TDBStats>;
procedure Add(ODBStats: TDBStatsList; const Item: TDBStats);
var
rItem: TDBStats;
begin
rItem := Item;
rItem.Freq := 1;
oDBStats.Add(rItem);
end;
procedure Update(ODBStats: TDBStatsList; const Item: TDBStats; const Index: Integer);
var
rItem: TDBStats;
begin
rItem := Item;
Inc(rItem.Freq);
oDBStats[Index] := rItem;
end;
var
oDBStats: TDBStatsList;
rDBStats: TDBStats;
myArr: array [0..4] of integer;
iIndex1: Integer;
begin
try
myArr[0] := 10;
myArr[1] := 20;
myArr[2] := 30;
myArr[3] := 40;
myArr[4] := 10;
oDBStats := TList<TDBStats>.Create;
try
for iIndex1 := 0 to 4 do
begin
rDBStats.Comb := myArr[iIndex1];
if oDBStats.Contains(rDBStats) then
Update(oDBStats, rDBStats, oDBStats.IndexOf(rDBStats))
else
Add(oDBStats, rDBStats);
end;
// Check List
for iIndex1 := 0 to Pred(oDBStats.Count) do
Writeln(oDBStats[iIndex1].Comb:3, oDBStats[iIndex1].Freq:10);
finally
oDBStats.Free;
end;
except
on E: Exception do
Writeln(E.ClassName, ': ', E.Message);
end;
Readln;
end.
and should return this result:
10 2
20 1
30 1
40 1
50 1
but return this result:
10 1
20 1
30 1
40 1
50 1
10 1
I have understood about problem: when i use oDBStats.Contains(rDBStats) it control if rDBStats element is contained in list; the first time not found it and add in list; but when it is added in list i update freq field to 1; so second time when i check again being rdbstats with freq = 0 not found it.
As i can solve this problem? I need to have a counter, where i get from input a "comb" and i want check if this "comb" is present in list, indipendetely from value of the other field of the record. In case i find "comb" in list, then i update, increasing freq field.
Thanks for help.
When you call Contains on a generic list, it looks if the given value is already inside the list. The value in your case is a record which consists of two fields. As you didn't specify a custom comparer, Delphi will use a default comparer which in case of a record does a binary compare. So only when two records are binary equal they will be treated as equal.
To make your example work you have to specify a custom comparer that compares only the comb field of the records. This is an example:
oDBStats := TList<TDBStats>.Create(TDelegatedComparer<TDBStats>.Create(
function(const Left, Right: TDBStats): Integer
begin
result := CompareValue(Left.comb, Right.comb);
end));
In addition you have an error in your update routine. Instead of incrementing the existing value, you are incrementing the undefined value of the item parameter. The change in the first line should make it work:
rItem := oDBStats[Index];
Inc(rItem.Freq);
oDBStats[Index] := rItem;
You have the wrong data structure since what you really need is a dictionary.
The fundamental problem with using a list is that you want to search on a subset of the stored record. But lists are not set up for that. Solve the problem by re-writing using TDictionary<Integer, Integer>.
I can recommend that you have a thorough read of the dictionary code example at the Embarcadero docwiki.
The key to the dictionary is what you call comb and the value is freq. To add an item you do this:
if Dict.TryGetValue(Comb, Freq) then
Dict[Comb] := Freq+1
else
Dict.Add(Comb, 1);
I'm assuming your dictionary is declared like this:
var
Dict: TDictionary<Integer, Integer>;
and created like this:
Dict := TDictionary<Integer, Integer>;
You can enumerate the dictionary with a simple for in loop.
var
Item: TPair<Integer, Integer>;
...
for Item in Dict do
Writeln(Item.Key:3, Item.Value:10);
Although be warned that the dictionary will enumerate in an odd order. You may wish to sort before printing.
If you wish to store more information associated with each entry in the dictionary then put the additional fields in a record.
type
TDictValue = record
Freq: Integer;
Field1: string;
Field2: TDateTime;
//etc.
end;
Then your dictionary becomes TDictionary<Integer, TDictValue>.
Is there a standard way to convert between TVarRec and Variant values?
I want to parse an 'array of const' and use the values to populate parameters in a TMSQuery. To do this I'm using a list of column names (generated from TMSQuery.KeyFields), and matching the values in the array with the column names in KeyFields (by position), then using the column name to set the corresponding parameter using ParamByName.
The code below is what I've come up with, but VarRecToVariant doesn't seem very elegant. Is there a better solution?
keyFields: TStringList;
// List of table column names (keyFields.DelimitedText := query.KeyFields;)
// e.g. Name, Age
query: TMSQuery;
// Parametrized query with a parameter for each field in keyFields
// SELECT * FROM People WHERE Age=:Age AND Name=:Name
// If keyValues is ['Bob', 42] the resulting query should be
// SELECT * FROM People WHERE Age=42 AND Name='Bob'
procedure Read(keyValues: array of const);
var
i: Integer;
name: string;
value: Variant;
begin
...
for i := 0 to keyFields.Count - 1 do
begin
name := keyFields[i];
value := VarRecToVariant(keyValues[i]);
query.ParamByName(name).Value := value;
end;
query.Open
...
end;
function VarRecToVariant(varRec: TVarRec): Variant;
begin
case varRec.VType of
vtInteger: result := varRec.VInteger;
vtBoolean: result := varRec.VBoolean;
vtChar: result := varRec.VChar;
vtExtended: result := varRec.VExtended^;
vtString: result := varRec.VString^;
...
end;
end;
Notes:
The values in the array of const depend on the parameters in the query. The caller knows what these are, but the method that uses the array doesn't know how many or what type to expect. I.e. I can't change the method to Read(name: string; age: integer).
The parameters are not necessarily used in the same order that the values are specified in the array of const. In the example, keyFields are specified as "Name,Age" but the query uses Age before Name. This means Params[i].Value := keyValues[i] won't work. I think VarRecToVariant would still be needed anyway, which I'm trying to avoid).
Replace
procedure Read(keyValues: array of const);
with
procedure Read(keyValues: array of Variant);
Then you will not need to convert TVarRec to Variant.
const
states : array [0..49,0..1] of string =
(
('Alabama','AL'),
('Montana','MT'),
('Alaska','AK'),
('Nebraska','NE'),
('Arizona','AZ'),
('Nevada','NV'),
('Arkansas','AR'),
('New Hampshire','NH'),
('California','CA'),
('New Jersey','NJ'),
('Colorado','CO'),
('New Mexico','NM'),
('Connecticut','CT'),
('New York','NY'),
('Delaware','DE'),
('North Carolina','NC'),
('Florida','FL'),
('North Dakota','ND'),
('Georgia','GA'),
('Ohio','OH'),
('Hawaii','HI'),
('Oklahoma','OK'),
('Idaho','ID'),
('Oregon','OR'),
('Illinois','IL'),
('Pennsylvania','PA'),
('Indiana','IN'),
('Rhode Island','RI'),
('Iowa','IA'),
('South Carolin','SC'),
('Kansas','KS'),
('South Dakota','SD'),
('Kentucky','KY'),
('Tennessee','TN'),
('Louisiana','LA'),
('Texas','TX'),
('Maine','ME'),
('Utah','UT'),
('Maryland','MD'),
('Vermont','VT'),
('Massachusetts','MA'),
('Virginia','VA'),
('Michigan','MI'),
('Washington','WA'),
('Minnesota','MN'),
('West Virginia','WV'),
('Mississippi','MS'),
('Wisconsin','WI'),
('Missouri','MO'),
('Wyoming','WY')
);
function getabb(state:string):string;
var
I:integer;
begin
for I := 0 to length(states) -1 do
if lowercase(state) = lowercase(states[I,0]) then
begin
result:= states[I,1];
end;
end;
function getstate(state:string):string;
var
I:integer;
begin
for I := 0 to length(states) -1 do
if lowercase(state) = lowercase(states[I,1]) then
begin
result:= states[I,0];
end;
end;
procedure TForm2.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
begin
edit1.Text:=getabb(edit1.Text);
end;
procedure TForm2.Button2Click(Sender: TObject);
begin
edit1.Text:=getstate(edit1.Text);
end;
end.
Is there a bette way to do this?
Should this kind of data be hard coded?
Wouldn't it be better to use something like a XML file or even just a CSV.
Or Name Value Pairs, i.e. IA=Iowa
then loaded into a TStringList to get
States.Values['IA'] = 'Iowa';
Then you just need to write something to search the Values to work backwards like
//***Untested***
//Use: NameOfValue(States, 'Iowa') = 'IA'
function NameOfValue(const strings: TStrings; const Value: string): string;
var
i : integer;
P: Integer;
S: string;
begin
for i := 0 to strings.count - 1 do
begin
S := strings.ValueFromIndex[i];
P := AnsiPos(strings.NameValueSeparator, S);
if (P <> 0) and (AnsiCompareText(Copy(S, 1, P - 1), Value) = 0) then
begin
Result := strings.Names[i];
Exit;
end;
end;
Result := '';
end;
I'm fairly sure its case insensitive too
If you're on D2009 or D2010, use a TDictionary<string, string> from Generics.Collections. Declare the array of constants like you have it, then set up your dictionary by putting each pair in to the dictionary. Then just use the dictionary's default property to do your lookups.
Notice that lowercase(a) = lowercase(b) is slower than sameText(a, b).
In addition, you can speed up the procedure further by storing the strings in the array as lower-case only, and then in the look-up routine start with converting the input to lower-case as well. Then you can use the even faster function sameStr(a, b). But of course, when a match is found, you then need to format it by capitalizing the initial letters. This speed-up approach is probably not very important for such a small list of strings. After all, there are not too many states in the US.
Also, you should declare the functions using const arguments, i.e. write
function getabb(const state:string):string;
instead of
function getabb(state:string):string;
(unless you want to change state in the routine).
Finally, you could make the code more compact and readable by omitting the begin and end of the for loops.
I would have your lists sorted. That way you can use a binary search to cut the lookup times down. It all depends on the number of iterations you will be exercising. Around 50 items doesn't seem like much, until your iterating over the list a few thousand times looking for the last item in the list.
Also you should ALWAYS bail from your loops as soon as you get get a match if you know the rest of the list will not match.
Arrays are fine, and depending on how your using the data, you might need to add some of the "territories" that also have abbreviations (PR = PUERTO RICO, GU = GUAM, etc.).
I'd like to set the length of a dynamic array, as suggested in this post. I have two classes TMyClass and the related TChildClass defined as
TChildClass = class
private
FField1: string;
FField2: string;
end;
TMyClass = class
private
FField1: TChildClass;
FField2: Array of TChildClass;
end;
The array augmentation is implemented as
var
RContext: TRttiContext;
RType: TRttiType;
Val: TValue; // Contains the TMyClass instance
RField: TRttiField; // A field in the TMyClass instance
RElementType: TRttiType; // The kind of elements in the dyn array
DynArr: TRttiDynamicArrayType;
Value: TValue; // Holding an instance as referenced by an array element
ArrPointer: Pointer;
ArrValue: TValue;
ArrLength: LongInt;
i: integer;
begin
RContext := TRTTIContext.Create;
try
RType := RContext.GetType(TMyClass.ClassInfo);
Val := RType.GetMethod('Create').Invoke(RType.AsInstance.MetaclassType, []);
RField := RType.GetField('FField2');
if (RField.FieldType is TRttiDynamicArrayType) then begin
DynArr := (RField.FieldType as TRttiDynamicArrayType);
RElementType := DynArr.ElementType;
// Set the new length of the array
ArrValue := RField.GetValue(Val.AsObject);
ArrLength := 3; // Three seems like a nice number
ArrPointer := ArrValue.GetReferenceToRawData;
DynArraySetLength(ArrPointer, ArrValue.TypeInfo, 1, #ArrLength);
{ TODO : Fix 'Index out of bounds' }
WriteLn(ArrValue.IsArray, ' ', ArrValue.GetArrayLength);
if RElementType.IsInstance then begin
for i := 0 to ArrLength - 1 do begin
Value := RElementType.GetMethod('Create').Invoke(RElementType.AsInstance.MetaclassType, []);
ArrValue.SetArrayElement(i, Value);
// This is just a test, so let's clean up immediatly
Value.Free;
end;
end;
end;
ReadLn;
Val.AsObject.Free;
finally
RContext.Free;
end;
end.
Being new to D2010 RTTI, I suspected the error could depend on getting ArrValue from the class instance, but the subsequent WriteLn prints "TRUE", so I've ruled that out. Disappointingly, however, the same WriteLn reports that the size of ArrValue is 0, which is confirmed by the "Index out of bounds"-exception I get when trying to set any of the elements in the array (through ArrValue.SetArrayElement(i, Value);). Do anyone know what I'm doing wrong here? (Or perhaps there is a better way to do this?) TIA!
Dynamic arrays are kind of tricky to work with. They're reference counted, and the following comment inside DynArraySetLength should shed some light on the problem:
// If the heap object isn't shared (ref count = 1), just resize it. Otherwise, we make a copy
Your object is holding one reference to it, and so is the TValue. Also, GetReferenceToRawData gives you a pointer to the array. You need to say PPointer(GetReferenceToRawData)^ to get the actual array to pass to DynArraySetLength.
Once you've got that, you can resize it, but you're left with a copy. Then you have to set it back onto the original array.
TValue.Make(#ArrPointer, dynArr.Handle, ArrValue);
RField.SetValue(val.AsObject, arrValue);
All in all, it's probably a lot simpler to just use a list instead of an array. With D2010 you've got Generics.Collections available, which means you can make a TList<TChildClass> or TObjectList<TChildClass> and have all the benefits of a list class without losing type safety.
I think you should define the array as a separate type:
TMyArray = array of TMyClass;
and use that.
From an old RTTI based XML serializer I know the general method that you use should work (D7..2009 tested):
procedure TXMLImpl.ReadArray(const Name: string; TypeInfo: TArrayInformation; Data: Pointer; IO: TParameterInputOutput);
var
P: PChar;
L, D: Integer;
BT: TTypeInformation;
begin
FArrayType := '';
FArraySize := -1;
ComplexTypePrefix(Name, '');
try
// Get the element type info.
BT := TypeInfo.BaseType;
if not Assigned(BT) then RaiseSerializationReadError; // Not a supported datatype!
// Typecheck the array specifier.
if (FArrayType <> '') and (FArrayType <> GetTypeName(BT)) then RaiseSerializationReadError;
// Do we have a fixed size array or a dynamically sized array?
L := FArraySize;
if L >= 0 then begin
// Set the array
DynArraySetLength(PPointer(Data)^,TypeInfo.TypeInformation,1,#L);
// And restore he elements
D := TypeInfo.ElementSize;
P := PPointer(Data)^;
while L > 0 do begin
ReadElement(''{ArrayItemName},BT,P,IO); // we allow any array item name.
Inc(P,D);
Dec(L);
end;
end else begin
RaiseNotSupported;
end;
finally
ComplexTypePostfix;
end;
end;
Hope this helps..