Determine the Delphi installation directory from a batch file

Delphi 2 Minutes

Since I work on several projects that require multiple Delphi installations, I needed a way to start the correct Delphi IDE and call the correct command line compiler for each of these projects. There apparently is no way to automatically detect the Delphi version from the .dof,.dpr or .dproj file (or at least this is limited), so I added batch files to these projects that call the correct Delphi version.

One of the things that irked me was that I had to adapt these batch files whenever I was working on a different computer and Delphi was not installed in the default installation directory. Finally I found a solution for this: The required information is stored in the registry at

HKCU\Software\(Borland|CodeGear|Embaracdero)\(TheDelphiVersion)\root

And the place where this is stored does not vary. I set out to find a way to read the registry from a batch file and found this answer on stackoverflow.

So, here is the result. A batch file that, when called with a Delphi version as parameter, returns the directory it is installed in:

@rem set the DelphiPath variable for various Delphi versions

setlocal

set DelphiVersion=%1

rem Support for Windows 7/8, 64 Bit
set ProgFiles=%ProgramFiles(x86)%
if not "%ProgFiles%"=="" goto Win64Bit
set ProgFiles=%ProgramFiles%
:Win64Bit

set DelphiPath=

rem this is equivalent to a case/switch statement
rem call :Delphi%DelphiVersion% resolves into call :Delphi6 etc.
call :Delphi%DelphiVersion%
goto DelphiEndCase
:Delphi6
  call :ReadReg Borland\Delphi\6.0
  goto :eof
:Delphi7
  call :ReadReg Borland\Delphi\7.0
  goto :eof
:Delphi2005
  call :ReadReg Borland\BDS\3.0
  goto :eof
:Delphi2006
  call :ReadReg Borland\BDS\4.0
  goto :eof
:Delphi2007
  call :ReadReg Borland\BDS\5.0
  goto :eof
:Delphi2009
  call :ReadReg CodeGear\BDS\6.0
  goto :eof
:Delphi2010
  call :ReadReg CodeGear\BDS\7.0
  goto :eof
:DelphiXE
  call :ReadReg Embarcadero\BDS\8.0
  goto :eof
:DelphiXE2
  call :ReadReg Embarcadero\BDS\9.0
  goto :eof
:DelphiXE3
  call :ReadReg Embarcadero\BDS\10.0
  goto :eof
:DelphiXE4
  call :ReadReg Embarcadero\BDS\11.0
  goto :eof
:DelphiXE5
  call :ReadReg Embarcadero\BDS\12.0
  goto :eof
:DelphiXE6
  call :ReadReg Embarcadero\BDS\14.0
  goto :eof
:DelphiEndCase

echo DelphiPath: "%DelphiPath%"
if exist "%DelphiPath%" goto allok
echo *** Error: Directory "%DelphiPath%" does not exist. ***
pause
goto :eof

:allok
endlocal & set DelphiPath=%DelphiPath%
rem echo DelphiPath: "%DelphiPath%"
goto :eof

:ReadReg
rem read the registry entry
set DelphiPath=
FOR /F "usebackq skip=2 tokens=3,*" %%A IN (`REG QUERY HKCU\Software\%1 /v RootDir 2^>nul`) DO (
  set DelphiPath=%%A %%B
)
rem remove one trailing space which might have been added because %%B was empty
rem remove any quotes
set DelphiPath=%DelphiPath:"=%
rem add quotes
set DelphiPath="%DelphiPath%"
rem remove space before the closing quote
set DelphiPath=%DelphiPath: "="%
rem remove any quotes
set DelphiPath=%DelphiPath:"=%
goto :eof

On this particular computer …

call delphipath.cmd XE6
echo %DelphiPath%

… writes …

d:\delphi\DelphiXE6

… and this …

call delphipath.cmd XE4
echo %DelphiPath%

… writes …

C:\Program Files (x86)\Embarcadero\RAD Studio\11.0\

This batch file is now part of my collection of build tools.

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