How to install and use Delphi 7 and help files on Windows 8/10 or Server 2012.

Installation

Start Delphi setup and install all required items including help files.

In Windows 8/10/Server 2012 or later (should work on Windows 7 too):

• Create the shortcut to Delphi32.exe
• Open …

Here is the code explaining some methods to pack bit accessing logic in your program.

program project1;

type
  TRec1 = packed record // Doesn't pack at all
    b1, b2, b3, b4, b5, b6, b7, b8, b9, b10, b11, b12, b13, b14, b15, b16: boolean;
  end;

  TRec2 = bitpacked record // Free Pascal specific …

Free Pascal (like Delphi) provide some useful functions to watch heap memory state in your application.

function GetHeapStatus: THeapStatus;

THeapStatus is documented here

Example of using this function is below

program ProgWatchMem;

uses
  Math, FGL;

type
  TLongIntArr = array of LongInt; // LongInt is a 4-byte signed integer
  PLongIntArr = ^TLongIntArr;
  TMySortedMap = specialize …

In the previous article "Crack C# namespaces in 30 seconds" I demonstrated how to make error having no idea about it. So you will have a lovely time in debugging. But in C# you're condemned to use using directive or your code will be unreadable with all these horrible specifiers …

Let's perform a simple benchmark testing the random and sequential access to arrays and lists. I would like to compare:

• static array with predefined size (allocated on stack)
• TList container class (allocated on heap)
• dynamic array (allocated on heap)
• generic Delphi TList or Free Pascal TFPGList (allocated on heap)

I …

The code below show how to implement very simple but cross-platform "old school" mutex (mutually exclusive semaphore)

interface

type
  TMutex = class
  private
    FFileHandle: integer;
  public
    constructor Create(const AName: string; const WaitForMSec: integer = 10000);
    destructor Destroy; override;
  end;

implementation

uses
  Classes, SysUtils, DateUtils,
  {$IFDEF MSWINDOWS}
  Windows
  {$ENDIF};

function GetTempDir: string …