[fpc-pascal] Mac OS X 10.6.1 problem

2009-10-12 Thread Paul Davidson

Using OS X 10.6.1, FPC 2.2.4, Xcode 3.2 on intel iMac.

The program and units all have {$I Directives.inc} at top of each  
file.  Compile lists many errors like:


6: Mode switch OBJFPC not allowed here

Any hints?






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Re: [fpc-pascal] Mac OS X 10.6.1 problem

2009-10-12 Thread Jonas Maebe


On 09 Oct 2009, at 19:57, Paul Davidson wrote:


Using OS X 10.6.1, FPC 2.2.4, Xcode 3.2 on intel iMac.

The program and units all have {$I Directives.inc} at top of each  
file.  Compile lists many errors like:


6: Mode switch OBJFPC not allowed here

Any hints?


This is unrelated to Mac OS X.

A modeswitch must occur before any code is parsed. In practice this  
means right above or below the unit statement. Older versions of FPC  
(2.2.0?) were more lenient in checking this.



Jonas
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Mac OS X 10.6.1 problem

2009-10-12 Thread Marco van de Voort
In our previous episode, Jonas Maebe said:
  Using OS X 10.6.1, FPC 2.2.4, Xcode 3.2 on intel iMac.
 
  The program and units all have {$I Directives.inc} at top of each  
  file.  Compile lists many errors like:
 
  6: Mode switch OBJFPC not allowed here
 
  Any hints?
 
 This is unrelated to Mac OS X.
 
 A modeswitch must occur before any code is parsed. In practice this  
 means right above or below the unit statement. Older versions of FPC  
 (2.2.0?) were more lenient in checking this.

(I talked to Paul on IRC, and it was multiple $mode directives that caused
the problem. Afaik that limitation was added at that same time too)

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Re: [fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

2009-10-12 Thread Jürgen Hestermann

You said C did it wrong, because you think that arrays and pointers
should be different things.  That is indeed you opinion, not a fact.
I don't even know why I'm replying any more, it's clearly futile.


Huh? Are you seriously trying to tell us that pointers and arrays are 
the same? Ok, then you realy don't need to reply anymore, there is 
nothing more to say...

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Re: [fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

2009-10-12 Thread Jürgen Hestermann

As said it depends from your viewpoint. C's original viewpoint was to keep
the state of a compilation unit as small as possible, to maximize the size
of a program with limited memory.


You mean they gave saving one character in the source code a higher 
priority than having a strict logic in the language? That sounds as if 
we are talking about the brainfuck language. ;-)



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Re: [fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

2009-10-12 Thread Florian Klaempfl
Jürgen Hestermann schrieb:
 As said it depends from your viewpoint. C's original viewpoint was to
 keep
 the state of a compilation unit as small as possible, to maximize the
 size
 of a program with limited memory.
 
 You mean they gave saving one character in the source code a higher
 priority than having a strict logic in the language? That sounds as if
 we are talking about the brainfuck language. ;-)

Modern languages contain a lot of stuff which is simply syntactic sugar.
  If you want strict logic, you should really use something like
brainfuck :)
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

2009-10-12 Thread Jürgen Hestermann

And the criticism about introducing Cisms in FPC/Delphi is also old. In the
past I would have joined you, but after a few non-trivial header conversions
and library conversions that pretty much died out.


But why are you then using Pascal at all? I love this language because 
of its strict logic (which make coding and debugging much easier) but 
having all these illogical C-style things creeping in makes it less Pascal.


if you have

var p : pchar;

what do the following contructs mean?

p
p^
@p
p[2]
@p[2]

If it were pure Pascal I could immediately tell you but with this 
C-style notation I am always doubting about the meaning. To put one on 
top, the meaning is even context dependent (using it in an expression or 
as a paramater of a function may give it have different meanings).


I am not sure why following the strict logic would generate more work. 
Of course, automatic translation from C to Pascal is getting more 
difficult, because you then face the drawbacks of C. If you transfer C's 
flaws into Pascal there is no need for changes. But what are you 
getting? You get C.



In 1.0.x times headers were often pascalized, but if you have answered
several tens of bugreports where people converted a C example and pass a
pointer to a formal parameter, you get tired of it. Likewise you also get
tired when you need to update some header (or code like zlib,jpeg) and have
to guess what the purpose and consequences of some pascallization are.


And the solution was to introduce the same C design flaws into Pascal so 
there was no need to change code (other than replacing { by begin and } 
by end)? Then what is the difference between Pascal and C anymore?

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Re: [fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

2009-10-12 Thread Jürgen Hestermann

No, it happens with static arrays,  if you set pia := @ia, ia[x] and
pia[x] will give you the same result (in delphi mode, at least).

It's simply more readable and a shortcut.


It's definitely the opposite: It is *less* readable because it leaves it 
unclear what data you are operating with. Enumerating a pointer makes 
you think that you are enumerating an array. That was the origin of the 
whole threat because someone was not clear about what to use as 
parameter in MOVE. It is no longer logical what a written identifier 
means: A pointer or an array.

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Re: [fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

2009-10-12 Thread Marco van de Voort
In our previous episode, J?rgen Hestermann said:
  And the criticism about introducing Cisms in FPC/Delphi is also old. In the
  past I would have joined you, but after a few non-trivial header conversions
  and library conversions that pretty much died out.
 
 But why are you then using Pascal at all? I love this language because 
 of its strict logic (which make coding and debugging much easier) but 
 having all these illogical C-style things creeping in makes it less Pascal.

I like Pascal because it makes me more productive.
 
 if you have
 
 var p : pchar;
 
 what do the following contructs mean?

(depends on delphi version, in D2009+ it is a pwidechar, before a pansichar)
 
 p

The value of  a pchar.

 p^

the char pointed to.

 @p

The address where the pointer is stored

 p[2]

The 3 third char starting from the address the pointer points to (1 based)

 @p[2]

The adress of the above.
 
 If it were pure Pascal I could immediately tell you but with this 
 C-style notation I am always doubting about the meaning.

I don't think you can say anything from pure syntax without bringing in the
typing. The fact that the pointer type required ^ in the past so that you
could make the distinction in this case is therefore negiable.

 To put one on top, the meaning is even context dependent (using it in an
 expression or as a paramater of a function may give it have different
 meanings).

True, but that is due to additional conversions in the expression, not the
strict meaning of the notation.
 
 I am not sure why following the strict logic would generate more work. 

Because when you are converting, (and then I mean manual or semi-automatic,
because reliable automatic conversion is hard), then the small errors that
this leads to can cost you days of debugging work.

 Of course, automatic translation from C to Pascal is getting more 
 difficult, because you then face the drawbacks of C. If you transfer C's 
 flaws into Pascal there is no need for changes. But what are you 
 getting? You get C.

That bit of code: yes.  However not having these is not an option either,
since it makes interfacing costly and hard to maintain, which is why these
features trickled in. And you are incompatible with Delphi and also MUST
convert there (not entirely true, some of them were in FPC first, due to
its own particular needs)

If it hadn't been for Delphi compatibility, the extensions maybe could be
limited to a certain mode, or unit type.  (since modes are nowadays global
per unit, if there was no delphi compatibility, the dialect selection could
be in the unit declaration)

  In 1.0.x times headers were often pascalized, but if you have answered
  several tens of bugreports where people converted a C example and pass a
  pointer to a formal parameter, you get tired of it. Likewise you also get
  tired when you need to update some header (or code like zlib,jpeg) and have
  to guess what the purpose and consequences of some pascallization are.
 
 And the solution was to introduce the same C design flaws into Pascal so 
 there was no need to change code (other than replacing { by begin and } 
 by end)? Then what is the difference between Pascal and C anymore?

I don't think a handful of extensions are that bad. If it bothers you so
much, submit patches for directives to turn them on/off.
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Who said Pascal isn't popular

2009-10-12 Thread Jürgen Hestermann
Remember, Pascal is merely a TEACHING language, unsuitable for commercial 
software development, which is why we have C.  :)


And why should that be the case? What are the outstanding feature of C 
that make it so supperiour? It's illogical and hard to maintain syntax? 
Or is it just that it was available for free on all unix systems?

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Re: [fpc-pascal] Who said Pascal isn't popular

2009-10-12 Thread Rainer Stratmann
Am Montag, 12. Oktober 2009 11:02 schrieb Jürgen Hestermann:
  Remember, Pascal is merely a TEACHING language, unsuitable for commercial
  software development, which is why we have C.  :)

 And why should that be the case? What are the outstanding feature of C
 that make it so supperiour? It's illogical and hard to maintain syntax?
 Or is it just that it was available for free on all unix systems?

Yes, it is available everywhere.
And it is easier to copy unix code then.

Remember that it is still not easy to come to freepascal.
You have to configure a debian testing system and apt-get lazarus and so on...
Nearly nowhere the lazarus package is preinstalled.
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Who said Pascal isn't popular

2009-10-12 Thread leledumbo

 Remember, Pascal is merely a TEACHING language, unsuitable for commercial
 software development, which is why we have C.  :) 

That's what I'm going to change. I've told my friends and collegemates about
Pascal superiority (suitable for any programming needs, GUI, WebApps,
Server, etc.) and they don't know about it at all because what they know is
what their teachers or lecturers say, (without any further research, of
course), and becomes a doctrine that makes Pascal look bad in their eyes.

 Yes, it is available everywhere.
 And it is easier to copy unix code then.

And harder to port it to Windows without Unix (POSIX?) environment emulation
(including headers, etc.)

 You have to configure a debian testing system and apt-get lazarus and so
 on...

you don't need lazarus just to use fpc, and I don't need that debian testing
system on my kubuntu.

 Nearly nowhere the lazarus package is preinstalled. 

other popular languages are often don't come preinstalled as well.
-- 
View this message in context: 
http://www.nabble.com/Who-said-Pascal-isn%27t-popular-tp25848247p25853217.html
Sent from the Free Pascal - General mailing list archive at Nabble.com.

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Re: [fpc-pascal] Who said Pascal isn't popular

2009-10-12 Thread Rainer Stratmann
Am Montag, 12. Oktober 2009 12:05 schrieb leledumbo:
 you don't need lazarus just to use fpc, and I don't need that debian
 testing system on my kubuntu.

Which editor do you use?
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Who said Pascal isn't popular

2009-10-12 Thread Mattias Gärtner

Zitat von Rainer Stratmann rainerstratm...@t-online.de:


Am Montag, 12. Oktober 2009 11:02 schrieb Jürgen Hestermann:

 Remember, Pascal is merely a TEACHING language, unsuitable for commercial
 software development, which is why we have C.  :)

And why should that be the case? What are the outstanding feature of C
that make it so supperiour? It's illogical and hard to maintain syntax?
Or is it just that it was available for free on all unix systems?


Yes, it is available everywhere.
And it is easier to copy unix code then.

Remember that it is still not easy to come to freepascal.
You have to configure a debian testing system and apt-get lazarus  
and so on...

Nearly nowhere the lazarus package is preinstalled.


Standard user distributions do not install any development software.
This is how linux distros work and is the same for every devel  
software, not only lazarus.


Some distros allow to create your own custom install CD/DVD.
This is used for network installs or for pools.

Maybe it is possible write a linux installer, which analyzes your  
system and downloads and installs all needed packages.


Mattias

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Re: [fpc-pascal] Who said Pascal isn't popular

2009-10-12 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys
2009/10/12 Rainer Stratmann rainerstratm...@t-online.de:

 Which editor do you use?

I'm not the one you replied to, but I can answer based on my
experience. I never use APT for FPC or Lazarus because they update
packages to slowly. I work directly from the Git mirror repositories.

* If I'm at work or home, I use Lazarus IDE.
* If I remote access another PC, I use mcedit (built-in Midnight
Commander's editor) or Free Pascal's Text IDE or sometimes even gEdit.
* When in a pinch, I will use vi (but then I am seriously disparate).



-- 
Regards,
  - Graeme -


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Re: [fpc-pascal] Who said Pascal isn't popular

2009-10-12 Thread Jürgen Hestermann

Yes, it is available everywhere.
And it is easier to copy unix code then.
Remember that it is still not easy to come to freepascal.
You have to configure a debian testing system and apt-get lazarus and so on...
Nearly nowhere the lazarus package is preinstalled.


Yes, these are the reasons for having C in the first place. But it is 
not because of the beauty (stict logic) and the features of the 
language. Just the opposite: C is popular *even though* it is an awful 
concept.



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Re: [fpc-pascal] Who said Pascal isn't popular

2009-10-12 Thread Marco van de Voort
In our previous episode, Rainer Stratmann said:
   Remember, Pascal is merely a TEACHING language, unsuitable for commercial
   software development, which is why we have C.  :)
 
  And why should that be the case? What are the outstanding feature of C
  that make it so supperiour? It's illogical and hard to maintain syntax?
  Or is it just that it was available for free on all unix systems?
 
 Yes, it is available everywhere.

Try compiling some Unix C code on Windows.

Give me Free Pascal any time :-)

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Re: [fpc-pascal] Who said Pascal isn't popular

2009-10-12 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys
2009/10/12 Marco van de Voort mar...@stack.nl:

 Yes, it is available everywhere.

 Try compiling some Unix C code on Windows.

 Give me Free Pascal any time :-)

+1

...and Try compiling some Unix C code on Unix/Linux/etc. I always
battle. Give me Free Pascal too!   :-)


PS:
Wow, did this message thread take a turn. I was simply impressed by
the unknown to me amount of Pascal compilers over the years. I only
knew about Turbo Pascal and Virtual Pascal for OS/2, in my younger
years at school.


-- 
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  - Graeme -


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Re: [fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

2009-10-12 Thread Jürgen Hestermann

No, it happens with static arrays,  if you set pia := @ia, ia[x] and
pia[x] will give you the same result (in delphi mode, at least).

It's simply more readable and a shortcut.
It's definitely the opposite: It is *less* readable 

This is your opinion :) To my experience faking arrays with dyn. size by
using array declarations with infinite size (else you get in trouble
with range checking) are much more error prone and unreadable than using
pointers with an implicit dereference operator as arrays. As soon as you
start using them like normal arrays (new, high, sizeof, passing them to
open array parameters, no range checking) you get burned as well, even
not taking care the extra declarations you need.


What has the one thing to do with the other? It would have been easy to 
introduce dynamic arrays without hiding away its nature from the user.



E.g. ansi- and widestrings or classes use implicit dereferencing as well
and they proved to work very well. If someone uses low level operations
like Move he should know what he does.


That's just the point: Most users are left unclear about the nature of 
data structures and they start doing an trial and error approach 
(changing syntax as long as it is compiled). Then hope it will do what 
they intented. That's exactly C-style! Of course, there are some that 
look under the hood and know about the details and only these people are 
able to avoid such things as memory leaks or pointers pointing to freed 
memory and so on. The others stumble through it praying that it runs and 
as long as 80% procent works they are already satisfied. That's not the 
spirit of Pascal. The language should be clear and predictable from the 
start.

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Re: [fpc-pascal] Problems to compile FPC 2.3.0

2009-10-12 Thread Jonas Maebe


On 11 Oct 2009, at 18:37, Matthias Klumpp wrote:

On Sun, 11 Oct 2009 11:09:58 +0200 (CEST), mar...@stack.nl (Marco  
van de

Voort) wrote:

In our previous episode, Matthias Klumpp said:

also be in 2.4.0


I do not have problems with FPC 2.3.x, but it is not allowed for  
me to

use
experimental SVN software :-(
Early next year sounds good!


It's not experimental anymore, it now has a fixes branch label :-)


I decided to use this version of FPC for now. Thank you for your help!
But now I have problems to compile the compiler:
First I got the error message

make[7]: *** No rule to make target `/prt0.as', needed by `prt0.o'.   
Stop.


How did you try to compile it? I don't remember seeing this error  
message mentioned before.



Jonas
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

2009-10-12 Thread Jürgen Hestermann

p

The value of  a pchar.


What do you mean by value? The pointer or the character it is pointing 
to? It seems that p sometimes means the first and sometimes the latter.



p^

the char pointed to.


Is this the same as p?


I don't think you can say anything from pure syntax without bringing in the
typing. The fact that the pointer type required ^ in the past so that you
could make the distinction in this case is therefore negiable.


I don't understand what you mean here. If I write a constuct (like p) 
it should mean the same in all circumstances. Otherwise it's becoming 
tricky when you need to think about the context too when writing code.



To put one on top, the meaning is even context dependent (using it in an
expression or as a paramater of a function may give it have different
meanings).

True, but that is due to additional conversions in the expression, not the
strict meaning of the notation.


Again I don't understand what you mean with additional conversions. If 
I want to access a pointer or its address or the data it is pointing to 
I should have an unambiguous, uniform and different syntax for all these 
3. But this is no longer the case.


I am not sure why following the strict logic would generate more work. 

Because when you are converting, (and then I mean manual or semi-automatic,
because reliable automatic conversion is hard), then the small errors that
this leads to can cost you days of debugging work.


Why that? In Turbo Pascal times I often coded complex nested data 
structures with records, arrays and pointers pointing to them. Then it 
often happened that I accidentaly used a pointer where I should have 
used the dereferenced pointer (or vice versa) but the compiler 
immediately raised an error and showed it to me. Now the compiler starts 
beeing smarter than I am and guesses what I could have meant. That's not 
very debugging friendly.



That bit of code: yes.  However not having these is not an option either,
since it makes interfacing costly and hard to maintain, which is why these
features trickled in. And you are incompatible with Delphi and also MUST
convert there (not entirely true, some of them were in FPC first, due to
its own particular needs)


Regarding arrays and pointers I can't see your problems. If in C a 
pointer is required you can use one in Pascal too. For function 
parameters you can use by reference or by value (to mimic what C does 
with pointers). So where is the problem?



If it hadn't been for Delphi compatibility, the extensions maybe could be
limited to a certain mode, or unit type.  (since modes are nowadays global
per unit, if there was no delphi compatibility, the dialect selection could
be in the unit declaration)


Yes, Borland was the culprit who introduced all this to Pascal. I was 
realy disappointed about it at that time. But Free Pascal is no longer a 
slave of Borland so could correct their errors.



I don't think a handful of extensions are that bad. If it bothers you so
much, submit patches for directives to turn them on/off.


If I would change my code only I would have an island solution. Reading 
code from others (for example Lazarus source code) would still be a 
problem. It is already a problem that no Pascal standard exits anymore. 
Adding yet another variant is not good. I once thought that Pascal was 
superior to other languages because of it's clear and strict concept but 
now there is no longer *the* Pascal language anymore.

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Re: [fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

2009-10-12 Thread Aleksa Todorovic
On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 12:47, Jürgen Hestermann
juergen.hesterm...@gmx.de wrote:
 No, it happens with static arrays,  if you set pia := @ia, ia[x] and
 pia[x] will give you the same result (in delphi mode, at least).

 It's simply more readable and a shortcut.

 It's definitely the opposite: It is *less* readable

 This is your opinion :) To my experience faking arrays with dyn. size by
 using array declarations with infinite size (else you get in trouble
 with range checking) are much more error prone and unreadable than using
 pointers with an implicit dereference operator as arrays. As soon as you
 start using them like normal arrays (new, high, sizeof, passing them to
 open array parameters, no range checking) you get burned as well, even
 not taking care the extra declarations you need.

 What has the one thing to do with the other? It would have been easy to
 introduce dynamic arrays without hiding away its nature from the user.

 E.g. ansi- and widestrings or classes use implicit dereferencing as well
 and they proved to work very well. If someone uses low level operations
 like Move he should know what he does.

 That's just the point: Most users are left unclear about the nature of data
 structures and they start doing an trial and error approach (changing syntax
 as long as it is compiled). Then hope it will do what they intented. That's
 exactly C-style! Of course, there are some that look under the hood and know
 about the details and only these people are able to avoid such things as
 memory leaks or pointers pointing to freed memory and so on. The others
 stumble through it praying that it runs and as long as 80% procent works
 they are already satisfied. That's not the spirit of Pascal. The language
 should be clear and predictable from the start.


I like the fact that Pascal introduced high level data structures
(like dynamic arrays, automatic reference counting on string, etc),
because they make your life much easier. It is true that you have to
be careful when you mix these high level data structures with low
level data structures (pointers) and low level functions (Move), but
once you _learn_ and understand the nature of these structures, you
get used them.

You could equally say that we don't need arrays at all, because they
could be represented as record of pointer to the the first byte of
array, number of elements in array and size of one array element, but
that's exactly what arrays are during compile time :-) Plus, you get
type checking. See? When you really need some feature so much that you
start coding it over and over (like dynamic arrays based on pointer to
array), it makes sense to improve the language and the compiler.


-- 
Aleksa Todorovic - Lead Programmer
Eipix Entertainment
http://www.eipix.com/
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

2009-10-12 Thread Florian Klaempfl
Jürgen Hestermann schrieb:
 No, it happens with static arrays,  if you set pia := @ia, ia[x] and
 pia[x] will give you the same result (in delphi mode, at least).
 It's simply more readable and a shortcut.
 It's definitely the opposite: It is *less* readable 
 This is your opinion :) To my experience faking arrays with dyn. size by
 using array declarations with infinite size (else you get in trouble
 with range checking) are much more error prone and unreadable than using
 pointers with an implicit dereference operator as arrays. As soon as you
 start using them like normal arrays (new, high, sizeof, passing them to
 open array parameters, no range checking) you get burned as well, even
 not taking care the extra declarations you need.
 
 What has the one thing to do with the other? 

I'am not talking not about object pascal dyn. arrays (OP dyn. arrays are
much more, see below) but the array-pointer equivalence as it has C as
well. As far as I can see, you suggest to declare

PChar = ^array[0..maxint] of Char;

? But be careful,
move(p1,p2,sizeof(PChar));
doesn't work as expect either.

If you don't agree, how would you like to declare pchar?

 It would have been easy to
 introduce dynamic arrays without hiding away its nature from the user.

What's there use then if the user has to do everything by hand? Dyn.
arrays are more than just an automatic dereference, they involve ref.
counting, automatic destruction if needed, dynamic range checking etc.

 
 E.g. ansi- and widestrings or classes use implicit dereferencing as well
 and they proved to work very well. If someone uses low level operations
 like Move he should know what he does.
 
 That's just the point: Most users are left unclear about the nature of

... and this is good. The alternatives are that the user builds his
processor and assembler himself or he uses something like brainfuck.

 data structures and they start doing an trial and error approach
 (changing syntax as long as it is compiled). Then hope it will do what
 they intented. That's exactly C-style! Of course, there are some that
 look under the hood and know about the details and only these people are
 able to avoid such things as memory leaks or pointers pointing to freed
 memory and so on. The others stumble through it praying that it runs and
 as long as 80% procent works they are already satisfied. That's not the
 spirit of Pascal. The language should be clear and predictable from the
 start.

Then we would have to remove things like typecasts, move or fillchar.
They are the problem because they allow the user to mess with basic
structures.
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

2009-10-12 Thread Marco van de Voort
In our previous episode, J?rgen Hestermann said:
[ Charset ISO-8859-15 unsupported, converting... ]
  p
  The value of  a pchar.
 
 What do you mean by value? The pointer or the character it is pointing 
 to? It seems that p sometimes means the first and sometimes the latter.

The pointer. The character (the pointer is pointing to) is not of type
pchar. The pointer has an own typedefinition and value too, and is a real
type, not a mere syntax element
 
  p^
  the char pointed to.
 
 Is this the same as p? 

No.
 
  I don't think you can say anything from pure syntax without bringing in the
  typing. The fact that the pointer type required ^ in the past so that you
  could make the distinction in this case is therefore negiable.
 
 I don't understand what you mean here. If I write a constuct (like p) 
 it should mean the same in all circumstances. Otherwise it's becoming 
 tricky when you need to think about the context too when writing code.

p without anything could be an integer, real, string, pointer type. IOW to
really read the code you need to know the typing.
 
  To put one on top, the meaning is even context dependent (using it in an
  expression or as a paramater of a function may give it have different
  meanings).
  True, but that is due to additional conversions in the expression, not the
  strict meaning of the notation.
 
 Again I don't understand what you mean with additional conversions. If 

When using certain types that can automatically convert to others in
expressions or such types in combination with overloading, sometimes
unintuitive things happen. I thought you were hinting on that.

 I want to access a pointer or its address or the data it is pointing to 
 I should have an unambiguous, uniform and different syntax for all these 
 3. But this is no longer the case.

I don't see your point here. 
 
  I am not sure why following the strict logic would generate more work. 
  Because when you are converting, (and then I mean manual or semi-automatic,
  because reliable automatic conversion is hard), then the small errors that
  this leads to can cost you days of debugging work.
 
 Why that? In Turbo Pascal times I often coded complex nested data 
 structures with records, arrays and pointers pointing to them. Then it 
 often happened that I accidentaly used a pointer where I should have 
 used the dereferenced pointer (or vice versa) but the compiler 
 immediately raised an error and showed it to me. Now the compiler starts 
 beeing smarter than I am and guesses what I could have meant. That's not 
 very debugging friendly.

As far as I know, the additional syntax has nothing to do with error
detection. This is an argument that is IMHO dragged in by the hairs.

One can argue out of orthogonality, esthetic or intuitive reasons, but afaik
there is no ambiguity on the compiler level here.
 
  That bit of code: yes.  However not having these is not an option either,
  since it makes interfacing costly and hard to maintain, which is why these
  features trickled in. And you are incompatible with Delphi and also MUST
  convert there (not entirely true, some of them were in FPC first, due to
  its own particular needs)
 
 Regarding arrays and pointers I can't see your problems. If in C a 
 pointer is required you can use one in Pascal too.

C allows to drop the * by transfering to array syntax. So Pascal allows
droping the ^ in places where it doesn't matter (when not at the end of the
expression)

  If it hadn't been for Delphi compatibility, the extensions maybe could be
  limited to a certain mode, or unit type.  (since modes are nowadays global
  per unit, if there was no delphi compatibility, the dialect selection could
  be in the unit declaration)
 
 Yes, Borland was the culprit who introduced all this to Pascal. I was 
 realy disappointed about it at that time. But Free Pascal is no longer a 
 slave of Borland so could correct their errors.

No. Compatibility is way more important to really getting things done. One
can debate if it is worthwhile in implementing (bits of) the recent
syntaxes, but the codebases in say the D7 dialect are simply too big to
discard. It would disallow any significant exchange and communication with
the Delphi community.
 
  I don't think a handful of extensions are that bad. If it bothers you so
  much, submit patches for directives to turn them on/off.
 
 If I would change my code only I would have an island solution. Reading 
 code from others (for example Lazarus source code) would still be a 
 problem. It is already a problem that no Pascal standard exits anymore.

You could separate the kind of code that needs this (interfacing code) from
code that doesn't. Removing it is no option, not now, not ever, because of
existing codebases and Delphi.
 
 Adding yet another variant is not good. I once thought that Pascal was 
 superior to other languages because of it's clear and strict concept but 
 now there is no longer *the* Pascal language anymore.

It 

Re: [fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

2009-10-12 Thread Martin

Jürgen Hestermann wrote:


What has the one thing to do with the other? It would have been easy 
to introduce dynamic arrays without hiding away its nature from the user.

Easy, maybe / useful, far less

The beauty of the current solution is that static and dynamic arrays can 
be substituted with each other, simple by changing the declaration, and 
adding/removing a setlength. All other code can be left as it is.
If you needed the ^ for dyn arrays everywhere, then you would have to 
make huge changes throughout your code, if ever you needed to change 
between static and dynamic arrays.


Now, I do not say that makes it right, neither does it make it wrong. 
Someone defined this is the decision and to make this the standard for 
dyn-arrays. So now, for any pascal compiler it is the right thing to 
follow this standard.


And if you seek a flaw in it: The problem is not with hiding the 
internal pointer (works well for classes too), the problem is the 
exception. the pointer is not hidden, if you use move. It would have 
been nice if it was hidden there too.

Then again move has many more dangers:
- it has now range checks
- it gets you into huge trouble, if the array you moved was an array of 
string or array of some_other_dyn_array. Because you ref-counting 
gets screwed.
So using move requires you to know a lot about the internals of pascal 
anyway. (yes you can find examples that don't, but using move without 
the knowledge about the internals, makes it a matter of luck, whether 
you run into trouble or not. Someone without the knowledge who had 
success with move on an array of integer will eventually try it with 
array of string too)


** Besides this the discussion is pointless. It is the standard now, and 
it is not going to be changed. **


Martin
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Who said Pascal isn't popular

2009-10-12 Thread Jürgen Hestermann

C is popular *even though* it is an awful concept.

It is like the video cassettes.
Betamax and Video2000 were the better quality,
but VHS was the most popular cassette.


Yes, sadly this is true (same with Microsoft pressing one awfull OS 
after the other into the market). Not always the best wins. Good 
marketing is important. The mass does *not* look behind the scene but 
follows what others do or what the marketing tells them.



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Re: [fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

2009-10-12 Thread Jürgen Hestermann
The beauty of the current solution is that static and dynamic arrays can 
be substituted with each other, simple by changing the declaration, and 
adding/removing a setlength. All other code can be left as it is.
If you needed the ^ for dyn arrays everywhere, then you would have to 
make huge changes throughout your code, if ever you needed to change 
between static and dynamic arrays.


What is the problem with search-and-replace? If you are forced to change 
your code you will have a closer look at it and may get aware of side 
effects of the change.



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Re: [fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

2009-10-12 Thread Marco van de Voort
In our previous episode, J?rgen Hestermann said:
  The beauty of the current solution is that static and dynamic arrays can 
  be substituted with each other, simple by changing the declaration, and 
  adding/removing a setlength. All other code can be left as it is.
  If you needed the ^ for dyn arrays everywhere, then you would have to 
  make huge changes throughout your code, if ever you needed to change 
  between static and dynamic arrays.
 
 What is the problem with search-and-replace? If you are forced to change 
 your code you will have a closer look at it and may get aware of side 
 effects of the change.

Yes, and if I had enough time I'd even write a poem about it :-)
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

2009-10-12 Thread Martin

Jürgen Hestermann wrote:
The beauty of the current solution is that static and dynamic arrays 
can be substituted with each other, simple by changing the 
declaration, and adding/removing a setlength. All other code can be 
left as it is.
If you needed the ^ for dyn arrays everywhere, then you would have 
to make huge changes throughout your code, if ever you needed to 
change between static and dynamic arrays.


What is the problem with search-and-replace? If you are forced to 
change your code you will have a closer look at it and may get aware 
of side effects of the change.
problem? time! reviewing half a million lines of code or more? I don't 
have the time.
Side effects? What side effects, if the test cases all pass afterwards, 
then it is good as it is.


But it;s pointless to discuss, there are two (or more) views to the 
topic. each side has chosen. Never mind what argument to come, no one is 
going to change their view on the topic anyway.


And if you look at my original post. I did not put judgement on it. I 
said it is not good, it is not bad, it simply is, and it is going to 
stay as it is.


The last bit means: live with it, or use a language different from 
pascal. If you choose to use something that you don't like, and that can 
not be altered (as to much existing code depends onit), what is the 
point of ranting about it? (this is a rhetorical question, no answer needed)


Martin

p.s.
this is my last post to this thread.
what ever you reply, you know what my answer would be, so I do not need 
to post it.
And I also have a good idea what your answer would be, even if you chose 
not to post it. your choice

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Re: [fpc-pascal] Who said Pascal isn't popular

2009-10-12 Thread Gustavo Enrique Jimenez
2009/10/12 Rainer Stratmann rainerstratm...@t-online.de:
 Am Montag, 12. Oktober 2009 11:02 schrieb Jürgen Hestermann:
  Remember, Pascal is merely a TEACHING language, unsuitable for commercial
  software development, which is why we have C.  :)

 And why should that be the case? What are the outstanding feature of C
 that make it so supperiour? It's illogical and hard to maintain syntax?
 Or is it just that it was available for free on all unix systems?

 Yes, it is available everywhere.
 And it is easier to copy unix code then.

 Remember that it is still not easy to come to freepascal.
 You have to configure a debian testing system and apt-get lazarus and so on...
 Nearly nowhere the lazarus package is preinstalled.

You don't need Debian Testing. My system is Debian Stable (i386) since
2001/2002. Never have had a serious problem installing
Lazarus/Freepascal.

Gustavo
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Problems to compile FPC 2.3.0

2009-10-12 Thread Matthias Klumpp
On Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:49:03 +0200, Jonas Maebe jonas.ma...@elis.ugent.be
wrote:
 On 11 Oct 2009, at 18:37, Matthias Klumpp wrote:

 I decided to use this version of FPC for now. Thank you for your help!
 But now I have problems to compile the compiler:
 First I got the error message

 make[7]: *** No rule to make target `/prt0.as', needed by `prt0.o'.   
 Stop.
 
 How did you try to compile it? I don't remember seeing this error  
 message mentioned before.

Okay, maybe this only happens if you remove all Makefiles and run fpcmake
again...
I tried it again and now - like magic - it works! But now I have another
problem:
 FPC 2.3.0 does not link against the new GDB 7 debugger:

(.text+0x38): undefined reference to `decimal32ToNumber'   
  
/usr/lib64/libgdb.a(dfp.o): In function `decimal_to_number':   
  
(.text+0x48): undefined reference to `decimal128ToNumber'  
  
/usr/lib64/libgdb.a(dfp.o): In function `decimal_to_number':   
  
(.text+0x58): undefined reference to `decimal64ToNumber'   
  
/usr/lib64/libgdb.a(dwarf2read.o): In function `dwarf2_read_section':  
  
(.text+0x2230): undefined reference to `inflateInit_'  
  
/usr/lib64/libgdb.a(dwarf2read.o): In function `dwarf2_read_section':  
  
(.text+0x226e): undefined reference to `inflate'   
  
/usr/lib64/libgdb.a(dwarf2read.o): In function `dwarf2_read_section':  
  
(.text+0x2282): undefined reference to `inflateReset'
/usr/lib64/libgdb.a(dwarf2read.o): In function `dwarf2_read_section':
(.text+0x2295): undefined reference to `inflateEnd'
/usr/lib64/libbfd.a(compress.o): In function
`bfd_uncompress_section_contents':
/build/buildd/binutils-2.19.91.20091006/builddir-single/bfd/../../bfd/compress.c:96:
undefined reference to `inflateInit_'
/build/buildd/binutils-2.19.91.20091006/builddir-single/bfd/../../bfd/compress.c:103:
undefined reference to `inflate'
/build/buildd/binutils-2.19.91.20091006/builddir-single/bfd/../../bfd/compress.c:106:
undefined reference to `inflateReset'
/build/buildd/binutils-2.19.91.20091006/builddir-single/bfd/../../bfd/compress.c:108:
undefined reference to `inflateEnd'
fp.pas(575,1) Error: Error while linking
fp.pas(575,1) Fatal: There were 1 errors compiling module, stopping

Etc... Should I report a bug about this or does someone already work on
this?
Thank you for your help again!

  Matthias

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Re: [fpc-pascal] Problems to compile FPC 2.3.0

2009-10-12 Thread Matthias Klumpp
On Mon, 12 Oct 2009 12:49:03 +0200, Jonas Maebe jonas.ma...@elis.ugent.be
wrote:
 On 11 Oct 2009, at 18:37, Matthias Klumpp wrote:

 I decided to use this version of FPC for now. Thank you for your help!
 But now I have problems to compile the compiler:
 First I got the error message

 make[7]: *** No rule to make target `/prt0.as', needed by `prt0.o'.   
 Stop.
 
 How did you try to compile it? I don't remember seeing this error  
 message mentioned before.

Okay, maybe this only happens if you remove all Makefiles and run fpcmake
again...
I tried it again and now - like magic - it works! But now I have another
problem:
 FPC 2.3.0 does not link against the new GDB 7 debugger:

(.text+0x38): undefined reference to `decimal32ToNumber'   
  
/usr/lib64/libgdb.a(dfp.o): In function `decimal_to_number':   
  
(.text+0x48): undefined reference to `decimal128ToNumber'  
  
/usr/lib64/libgdb.a(dfp.o): In function `decimal_to_number':   
  
(.text+0x58): undefined reference to `decimal64ToNumber'   
  
/usr/lib64/libgdb.a(dwarf2read.o): In function `dwarf2_read_section':  
  
(.text+0x2230): undefined reference to `inflateInit_'  
  
/usr/lib64/libgdb.a(dwarf2read.o): In function `dwarf2_read_section':  
  
(.text+0x226e): undefined reference to `inflate'   
  
/usr/lib64/libgdb.a(dwarf2read.o): In function `dwarf2_read_section':  
  
(.text+0x2282): undefined reference to `inflateReset'
/usr/lib64/libgdb.a(dwarf2read.o): In function `dwarf2_read_section':
(.text+0x2295): undefined reference to `inflateEnd'
/usr/lib64/libbfd.a(compress.o): In function
`bfd_uncompress_section_contents':
/build/buildd/binutils-2.19.91.20091006/builddir-single/bfd/../../bfd/compress.c:96:
undefined reference to `inflateInit_'
/build/buildd/binutils-2.19.91.20091006/builddir-single/bfd/../../bfd/compress.c:103:
undefined reference to `inflate'
/build/buildd/binutils-2.19.91.20091006/builddir-single/bfd/../../bfd/compress.c:106:
undefined reference to `inflateReset'
/build/buildd/binutils-2.19.91.20091006/builddir-single/bfd/../../bfd/compress.c:108:
undefined reference to `inflateEnd'
fp.pas(575,1) Error: Error while linking
fp.pas(575,1) Fatal: There were 1 errors compiling module, stopping

Etc... Should I report a bug about this or does someone already work on
this?
Thank you for your help again!

  Matthias

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Re: [fpc-pascal] Who said Pascal isn't popular

2009-10-12 Thread Rainer Stratmann
Am Montag, 12. Oktober 2009 16:21 schrieb Gustavo Enrique Jimenez:
 2009/10/12 Rainer Stratmann rainerstratm...@t-online.de:
  Am Montag, 12. Oktober 2009 11:02 schrieb Jürgen Hestermann:
   Remember, Pascal is merely a TEACHING language, unsuitable for
   commercial software development, which is why we have C.  :)
 
  And why should that be the case? What are the outstanding feature of C
  that make it so supperiour? It's illogical and hard to maintain syntax?
  Or is it just that it was available for free on all unix systems?
 
  Yes, it is available everywhere.
  And it is easier to copy unix code then.
 
  Remember that it is still not easy to come to freepascal.
  You have to configure a debian testing system and apt-get lazarus and so
  on... Nearly nowhere the lazarus package is preinstalled.

 You don't need Debian Testing. My system is Debian Stable (i386) since
 2001/2002. Never have had a serious problem installing
 Lazarus/Freepascal.

How do you install Lazarus/Freepascal with apt or else?
I am a friend of userfriendly software...
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

2009-10-12 Thread Henry Vermaak
2009/10/12 Marco van de Voort mar...@stack.nl:
 In our previous episode, Jürgen Hestermann said:

 What is the problem with search-and-replace? If you are forced to change
 your code you will have a closer look at it and may get aware of side
 effects of the change.

 Yes, and if I had enough time I'd even write a poem about it :-)

:)  I've been thinking about basing the script of a horror film on
some of my code, but sadly, haven't got enough time.
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Why use pointers to arrays?

2009-10-12 Thread Andrew Brunner
On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 5:25 PM, Vinzent Höfler
jellyfish.softw...@gmx.net wrote:
 Andrew Brunner andrew.t.brun...@gmail.com:

 1st benefit:

 declaring methods associated with classes before TIntArray needs to be
 defined or declared.
   eg. procedure DoSomething(Var Data:TIntArray); vs (DataP:PIntArray);

 Huh? Is there any difference other than the second one can take a NIL value?

Read up on forward declarations.  The technique of declaring a typed
pointer to any data structure in FPC and Delphi was that you can use
it in fields and methods of objects and data structures w/o having to
actually have it fleshed out until later in the interface envelope of
the unit.   I've found that using forward declarations is a saving
grace with complicated systems.

 Lastly, passing by reference rather than by value is much faster.

 That's what const has been invented for: Letting the compiler decide the 
 most efficient way.

Oh I don't know about that one.  I'd like someone else to comment on
that.  Does using const prohibit copies of the memory.  I had memory
leaks with Delphi 5 or 6 doing this way back when and I attributed it
to trying to pass by reference using const... IMO it should do this
but may have had lead me to believe this is not the case...  But the
fact it that passing by reference is faster than passing by value...
That was my only point - which you made quite well.  As far as the
invention of const descriptor - I only use that for conventional
objects since dealing with pointers to data by const or by var is
trivial not organization or for maintanince or code review ;-)

 Not to mention, expressing your intent:

 You don't change it, say so: const.
 You change it,       say so: var.
 You initialize it,   say so: out.

 If you just take the pointer no-one knows if the value is in/in out/or out. 
 That's clearly not a benefit.

Ahhh... The beauty of Pascal over C++ ;-)  Buy you're getting way to
particular man...  You know I've never had a need for Out save for
once. LOL.
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Why use pointers to arrays?

2009-10-12 Thread Marc Weustink

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:

On 11/10/2009, Andrew Brunner andrew.t.brun...@gmail.com wrote:

 FPC forces the ^ operator while accessing structures as pointers.
 Delphi didn't force it and I even suspect that memory leaks can result
 in NOT using the ^ to denote the reference to the pointer rather than
 the pointer itself.


This was just discussed in another thread. This is not always forced by FPC.
eg:

var
  S:  TMyArray;
  pS: ^TMyArray;

then use them as follows:

  S[2]
  pS[2]

Both work just fine without dereferencing the second line. Weird
behaviour, but true.


However they have a different meaning.

assume TMyArray=array[1..10] of Byte;

then S[2] refers to the second element of S, being the second byte, 
while pS[2] refers to the 3 element of pS, being the 3rd TMyArray



Marc

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Re: [fpc-pascal] Why use pointers to arrays?

2009-10-12 Thread Andrew Brunner
On Mon, Oct 12, 2009 at 12:43 PM, Marc Weustink m...@dommelstein.net wrote:
 Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:

 On 11/10/2009, Andrew Brunner andrew.t.brun...@gmail.com wrote:

  FPC forces the ^ operator while accessing structures as pointers.
  Delphi didn't force it and I even suspect that memory leaks can result
  in NOT using the ^ to denote the reference to the pointer rather than
  the pointer itself.
  pS[2] 

Any idea what the compiler option is under Lazarus (that's what I use
exclusively)?

I get a compiler error when I don't use the ^ operator.
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Who said Pascal isn't popular

2009-10-12 Thread Vinzent Höfler
Jürgen Hestermann juergen.hesterm...@gmx.de:

 And why should that be the case? What are the outstanding feature of C 
 that make it so supperiour? It's illogical and hard to maintain syntax?

Its Compile anything, crash everywhere. interface. :P


Vinzent.
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

2009-10-12 Thread Vinzent Höfler
Jürgen Hestermann juergen.hesterm...@gmx.de:

 Adding yet another variant is not good. I once thought that Pascal was 
 superior to other languages because of it's clear and strict concept but 
 now there is no longer *the* Pascal language anymore.

If you're searching for some stricter Pascal then maybe you should give Ada a 
try.


Vinzent.

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Re: [fpc-pascal] Illogical automatic dereferencing

2009-10-12 Thread Vinzent Höfler
Martin laza...@mfriebe.de:

 The beauty of the current solution is that static and dynamic arrays can 
 be substituted with each other, simple by changing the declaration, and 
 adding/removing a setlength. All other code can be left as it is.

No, because of subtle differences in the handling of out parameters. Dynamic 
arrays don't retain their length then. I fell into that trap a couple of years 
ago.

BTW, the expression @DynamicArray should really return the address of the 
first element, not the address of the pointer to the array structure. It 
somehow destroys the abstraction. And I can't imagine any situation where the 
pointer might be of the interest for the user of the abstraction.

(Yes, I'm aware of that it's not going to change, so just acknowledge that as 
my opinion.)


Vinzent.
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Why use pointers to arrays?

2009-10-12 Thread Henry Vermaak
2009/10/12 Andrew Brunner andrew.t.brun...@gmail.com:
  pS[2] 

 Any idea what the compiler option is under Lazarus (that's what I use
 exclusively)?

 I get a compiler error when I don't use the ^ operator.

It only works with {$mode delphi} and lazarus uses {$mode objfpc}, i think.
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[fpc-pascal] Lazarus 0.9.28 released

2009-10-12 Thread Mattias Gaertner
The Lazarus team is glad to announce the 0.9.28 release. This release
is based on fpc 2.2.4.

This release can be downloaded from the SourceForge download page:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lazarus/files/

Highlights / Major changes:

LCL:
*LCL now uses gtk2 as default widgetset on Linux and BSD
*Windows CE: Implemented TCalendar, TFloatSpinEdit, TOpenDialog 
 and TSaveDialog 
*TFrame support. Visually nesting in the IDE.
*TMonitor class: multi-monitor support
*New components: TShellTreeView, TShellListView and TFilterComboBox
*Refactoring of LCL reduced minimum size of executables by about 15%

IDE:
*New IDE options dialog combines environments, editor, codetools,
 code explorer, debugger and help options.
*Application icon has been added to the Project Options
*Many source editor improvements like display of double width fonts
 (Eastern, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, ...), better code folding, 
 highlighting, syncro editing, persistent blocks ...
*Codetools: removing empty methods, block completion,
 update references when renaming a unit
*Debugger: assembler windows, easier exception handling, 
 breakpoint properties


And thousands of fixes and smaller changes. The list of changes can be
found here:
http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Lazarus_0.9.28_release_notes


Known issues:
- Debian packages: the default lazarus directory is wrong.
  The IDE detects the right one and asks on first start. 
  Just click Ok.
- When compiling a test application the compiler can not
  find project1.lrs. Workaround: save the project before
  compiling OR create an empty file /tmp/project1.lrs.


Mattias
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Why use pointers to arrays?

2009-10-12 Thread Vinzent Höfler
Andrew Brunner andrew.t.brun...@gmail.com:

 On Sun, Oct 11, 2009 at 5:25 PM, Vinzent Höfler

 Read up on forward declarations.  The technique of declaring a typed
 pointer to any data structure in FPC and Delphi was that you can use
 it in fields and methods of objects and data structures w/o having to
 actually have it fleshed out until later in the interface envelope of
 the unit.   I've found that using forward declarations is a saving
 grace with complicated systems.

Oh, you're talking about what I call incomplete type? ;)

I always was under the impression that the pointed-to-type being declared must 
be completed in the same declaration section, has that changed? If not, I fail 
to see the benefit, because you still have to complete the type in the same 
scope. Which is technically the same as directly declaring it in the first 
place (unless it's self-referencing, of course).


Vinzent.
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[fpc-pascal] Video4Linux access

2009-10-12 Thread Hartmut Eilers
Hi Everybody,

I need video4linux support for my new project. I tried vfp unit
I found in the contribute units website.
But it seems very outdated. Itried all things menitioned in the
forum, but I'm not able to get the things up. the code  is hard
to read and I found not one comment line :(
Thanks for the hard work, but with some comments i possibly
would be able to fix broken stuff.

Is there an alternative way to use video4linux ?

Thanks a lot and please use comments ;)

Hartmut

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Re: [fpc-pascal] Lazarus 0.9.28 released

2009-10-12 Thread Silvio Clecio

Mattias Gaertner escreveu:

The Lazarus team is glad to announce the 0.9.28 release. This release
is based on fpc 2.2.4.

This release can be downloaded from the SourceForge download page:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/lazarus/files/

Highlights / Major changes:

LCL:
*LCL now uses gtk2 as default widgetset on Linux and BSD
*Windows CE: Implemented TCalendar, TFloatSpinEdit, TOpenDialog 
 and TSaveDialog 
*TFrame support. Visually nesting in the IDE.

*TMonitor class: multi-monitor support
*New components: TShellTreeView, TShellListView and TFilterComboBox
*Refactoring of LCL reduced minimum size of executables by about 15%

IDE:
*New IDE options dialog combines environments, editor, codetools,
 code explorer, debugger and help options.
*Application icon has been added to the Project Options
*Many source editor improvements like display of double width fonts
 (Eastern, Japanese, Chinese, Arabic, ...), better code folding, 
 highlighting, syncro editing, persistent blocks ...

*Codetools: removing empty methods, block completion,
 update references when renaming a unit
*Debugger: assembler windows, easier exception handling, 
 breakpoint properties



And thousands of fixes and smaller changes. The list of changes can be
found here:
http://wiki.lazarus.freepascal.org/Lazarus_0.9.28_release_notes


Known issues:
- Debian packages: the default lazarus directory is wrong.
  The IDE detects the right one and asks on first start. 
  Just click Ok.

- When compiling a test application the compiler can not
  find project1.lrs. Workaround: save the project before
  compiling OR create an empty file /tmp/project1.lrs.


Mattias


Congratulations to all by the great work. :)
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Re: [fpc-pascal] Who said Pascal isn't popular

2009-10-12 Thread Gustavo Enrique Jimenez
2009/10/12 Rainer Stratmann rainerstratm...@t-online.de:
 Am Montag, 12. Oktober 2009 16:21 schrieb Gustavo Enrique Jimenez:
 2009/10/12 Rainer Stratmann rainerstratm...@t-online.de:
  Am Montag, 12. Oktober 2009 11:02 schrieb Jürgen Hestermann:
   Remember, Pascal is merely a TEACHING language, unsuitable for
   commercial software development, which is why we have C.  :)
 
  And why should that be the case? What are the outstanding feature of C
  that make it so supperiour? It's illogical and hard to maintain syntax?
  Or is it just that it was available for free on all unix systems?
 
  Yes, it is available everywhere.
  And it is easier to copy unix code then.
 
  Remember that it is still not easy to come to freepascal.
  You have to configure a debian testing system and apt-get lazarus and so
  on... Nearly nowhere the lazarus package is preinstalled.

 You don't need Debian Testing. My system is Debian Stable (i386) since
 2001/2002. Never have had a serious problem installing
 Lazarus/Freepascal.

 How do you install Lazarus/Freepascal with apt or else?
 I am a friend of userfriendly software...


Download fpc-2.2.4-3.i386.deb.tar and lazarus_0.9.28-0.i386.deb.tar

tar -xf *.tar
dpkg -i *.deb  - as root

Gustavo
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