Delphi 7 - XE5 Differences

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As of October, 2016, Embarcadero is offering a free release of Delphi (Delphi 10.1 Berlin Starter Edition ).     There are a few restrictions, but it is a welcome step toward making more programmers aware of the joys of Delphi.  They do say "Offer may be withdrawn at any time", so don't delay if you want to check it out.  Please use the feedback link to let me know if the link stops working.

 

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November 24, 2013:   I recently upgraded from Delphi 7 to Delphi XE5.  Since the DFF audience appears to be approximately evenly split between "D7 and earlier" and "after D7" users, I'll try to support for both early and later versions where possible.  Regardless of whether you need multiple version support, there are differences which will require source code changes after the upgrade. 

 

Differences & Considerations:

 

This section will document differences as I find them.  It is not always documented exactly which version of Delphi first implemented a feature or change, but most language syntax changes seem to have appeared shortly after D7.  For my conditional compilation tests, I'm assuming the changes apply after D7  (Compiler version >15) unless I know otherwise.  If you discover an item in the list where that does not apply, please use the feedback link to let me know.

 

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Format Settings: Beginning with XE  (Compiler version 22), the date/time formatting variables previously embedded in the SysUtils unit now exist within a FormatSettings record within SysUtils.  The record is TFormatSettings type and contains date, time, and number formatting information which may change depending where you live.  So if your program previously referenced "ThousandSeparator" for example, it must now reference FormatSettings.ThousandSeparator.  Check library unit UBigIntsV4 for an example.
 

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UInt64 (Unsigned 64 bit integer type):  This is a language enhancement which allows true 64 bit integers (up to 264 -1) to be manipulated.  Int64 integers reserve 1 bit for the sign so the maximum value is 263 -1.  This became a consideration when creating a Random64 function suitable for pre and post D7 compilers.    Check the library unit Mathslib source code for an example. 

 

Issues with multiple Delphi compiler versions on the same system:

 

I currently have a few problems running D7 after installing XE5.

 

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If a form defined in XE is then compiled with D7, you may encounter "Undefined property errors" for new properties.  Assuming that these new properties have not been referenced in the program, they may be safely ignored.  I have options set to generate text version of forms by default which was necessary for transferring to the free Lazarus Delphi emulator.  It may be a requirement for XE forms also.  

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If the "Save Desktop" option is set XE,  D7 hangs when trying to start.  Cause unknown, but removing or renaming the ".dsk" file generated by XE  allows D7 to start.  Still being investigated.

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Similarly, D7 produces a message at startup concerning the "Just in Time" debugger file being invalid.  Replying "Yes" to then "change option" question  causes an "unable to change" error and a hang.  Replying "No" allows D7 to start OK but without debugging facilities.  Still being investigated.    

 Delphi 10.1 Berlin -  Delphi 7 Differences (November 2016)

 

Embarcadero is currently offering Delphi 10.1 Berlin as a free download which has increased the interest in upgrading Delphi 7 code.  A viewer recently converted our Akerue program which ran but failed to find words.  The problem turned out to be the bs. Delphi 7 use of single 8 bit characters for String data types  vs. the  use of Unicode 16 bit characters for String types in current Delphi versions including Delphi 10.1.   The dictionary creation and accessing routines in our UDict unit use ANSI string types and I am not willing to double dictionary sizes by converting to to wide characters.    The alternative was to modify the accessing routines to specify ANSIString  data types. 

The updated Udict is included in the DFFLibV14_12Nov2016 library zip file.

 

The method I have adopted to ensure program compatibility with both old and new Delphi versions Is to change all references to "String" data type in the source code to "ANSIString".    "Char: character types are now also 2 byte WideChar types.  Simply adding the type definition "Char=ANSIChar" in a form's Type definition section will resolve most problems caused by the definition differences.

 

After these changes, there may be statements that still cause compilation errors if the are compiled under a newer Delphi version and create controls which generate string data types, TStringList and TStringGrid, for example.   The controls will generate Wide character strings and may require recasting to ANSI strings if using character indexing when referencing, for example. 

 

The Dicmaint dictionary maintenance program along with the seven programs contained in WordStuff3 application have been converted as described above to compile and run successfully under  old and new Delphi versions.   Some "nuisance" problems were encountered, specifically:

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New properties exists for some controls causing  Delphi 7 to complain when loading the project; ExplicitHeight and ExplicitWidth can be safely ignored in most cases.  However if controls have Autosize or Align/AlClient properties set, D7 may hang when loading the program.  My solution so far has been to change those properties. 

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Default Font property values seem to have changed under Berlin, contributing to some readability and scaling problems.  Don't have a recommended solution yet except to change values back to the ones I want.   If there is a way to change default property values under Berlin, I have not found it yet.

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Under the Berlin compiler, right clicking a form and selecting the "Text DFM" option will save the .DFM form files as readable text; very convenient when analyzing differences between Delphi versions.   

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Because executables under newer Delphi versions are several times larger larger than D7, I will be uploading only D7 executables unless the newer version is required.   Source modules will remain compatible across versions if possible.   Compiler conditionals testing compiler version numbers are always possible but require knowledge of when incompatible compiler changes were introduced -  not a fun way to spend a day!

                

Created: November 24, 2013

Modified: May 12, 2018

 
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