ianhinson wrote: > Due to starting a major new version of a program, and wanting to > leave the existing version "as is", I created a new folder and copied > source files into the new folder. > > At first I only copied the application files (.dpr, .dof, .cfg. res) > and the .pas/.dfm files referred to in the Project Manager. > Although some other custom .pas are needed (that are not included in > the Program Manager) I left them out of the initial copy just so that > the compiler could "tell" me which units I need so that I wouldn't be > copying across old units that are no longer used. > > To my surprise the newly copied application files compiled first > time - even though I knew there must be SOME pas files I did not copy > across. > I found that it compiled because units in the new folder where using > units in the old folder (by doing ctrl-click to see where it was > getting some items from that should've been undefined). > > I had to re-name the old folder in a desperate attempt to hide the > old units (which worked) and proceed as I had originally expected. > > The weird thing is that there is NO reference to the old folder at > all that I can find. Not in the Search Path, or any of the > application files (.dpr, .dof, .cfg), or any of the pas files. > > How would it be finding my units in a completely different folder? > Both of the source file folders are directly under "Delphi7\Projects".
The DPR file contains references to all the units that are members of your project. Look in it and you'll see. The references might be relative paths, but they might also be absolute paths. If they're absolute, then it's obvious how the compiler is finding the units you don't want it to find -- you're telling it exactly where they are. Units that aren't members of your project are found with the library path and the search path. I recommend that any project should contain all and only those units that the compiler should compile when building that project. And no unit should be a member of more than one project. If you have units that are used by multiple projects, then put that unit in a package. When you want to recompile that shared unit, recompile the package. That way, you're less likely to accidentally break one project by changing the shared unit during an editing session of some other project. Instead, you'll have to open the package, thereby reminding yourself that you're working on shared code. This doesn't mean you need to use run-time packages. In this case, packages are just a way of structuring your projects. Keeping everything separate like this lets you do another organizational task, which is to keep source files and compiled files in separate directories. I compile _all_ my DCU files into a single folder (one per Delphi version). My search path consists of only that directory. This way, the compiler never accidentally finds the source to a unit I don't want it to find. This is because all the source I want it to find it mentioned explicitly in the project file -- the compiler is only compiling units that actually belong to the project I'm working on. -- Rob
