Expressive If and Case …
A quick post on a small but hugely useful little language feature in Oxygene… if expressions.
The Varying (and Variant) Value of True
My most recent posts have prompted a bit of discussion, and it seems some concern, regarding the implementation of Boolean values in Delphi. The concern at least I think is unwarranted, as long as you avoid explicitly comparing a Boolean value to the True constant and allow the compiler to logically evaluate the Boolean itself. But in the follow up investigations of one commenter (thank you Arthur), a further occurrence of the alternate -1 identity of True has been identified: Variants.
(True = 1) and (True = ‘-1’) ?
It has been observed that the Delphi documentation states that the constants True and False have the values 1 and 0 respectively, not the -1 and 0 that the default string conversions apply. This does actually make sense but also lays a trap for the unwary.
Anatomy of a utility function: BoolToStr()
Jaap Van Goor was asking on FaceBook about some seemingly strange behaviour when obtaining string representations of Booleans using the Delphi RTL, which led me to revisit some familiar (and some not so familiar) old Delphi ground and take a look at the area involved in further detail.
Anonymous Classes: Identity Exposed!
In my previous post on Anonymous Classes I erroneously referred to them as “dynamic objects” (thanks to commentors for pulling me up on that). Dynamic objects are something else entirely (although what precisely they might mean can vary on different platforms and in different languages). I have now corrected that post on this point, and also on another point that Marc Hoffman called me out on (again, thanks for that). And so the time has now come to expose the true identity of these so called “Anonymous Classes”.
Anonymous Classes: Anonymous POCO’s
There is another use case for anonymous classes, even simpler than that of providing implementations of interfaces: Anonymous POCO’s.
Anonymous Classes: Implementing Interfaces
A few years ago (2011 to be precise) someone asked a question on StackOverflow about support for anonymous classes in Delphi. The reason for the question was that the poster was trying to use Delphi to develop for Android and on that platform the widespread use of callback interfaces makes anonymous classes highly desirable.
Formatting Case Statements
I’m afraid I have been guilty of editorialising on StackOverflow. It was sheer laziness really. A question prompted me to respond by sharing a personal preference and instead of “context switching” to my blog I posted an answer that even at the time I acknowledged was not in fact an answer (though as transgression go I have to say I have seen far worse, but, that’s no excuse). So, with (further) apologies to StackOverflow, I have withdrawn that answer and instead present that editorial here, a more appropriate forum.
A Deeper Dive into Range Checking
Yesterday I posted about an issue with type checking in Delphi (and other Pascal) compilers. As mentioned in that post, range checking is fundamentally flawed as a supposed solution to the problem for reasons that are explored further in this post.
A Silent Danger…
A brief post on a long standing omission in type checking in Pascal and the limitations of Range Checking as applied to the problem.