Category: Delphi

Switching GetIt to Online mode for an alternate Delphi configuration

GetIt is the package manager built into the Delphi IDE. It can be used in Online and Offline mode. If you installed Delphi from an ISO, GetIt was left in Offline mode. That has some drawbacks: GetIt cannot notify you about new updates or patches as they become available. The "Manage Features" functionality of the … Continue reading Switching GetIt to Online mode for an alternate Delphi configuration →

Universal Debug Visualizer for Delphi

As mentioned in my previous post on dzDebugVisualizer I was thinking about writing a generalized debug visualizer which can be user-configured to register itself for any data type. Well, that debug visualizer now exists. It's part of dzDebugVisualizer and called "Universal Visualizer for Delphi". It has got a configuration page in the Tools -> Options … Continue reading Universal Debug Visualizer for Delphi →

Simplified Debug Visualizers for all my TNullableTypes

After playing around with debug visualizers, I found that there is a very simple way to provide a visualiser for many record types: Just add a special method (I called it Dump) to those records that returns a string that you can then evaluate in the debugger and display in the debug windows. There are … Continue reading Simplified Debug Visualizers for all my TNullableTypes →

Getting the current line number in Delphi

Note to self: There is an easy way to get the current line number in Delphi, using the following function and JclDebug: [delphi] function GetCurrentLineNumber: Integer; var ModInfo: TJclLocationInfo; begin ModInfo := GetLocationInfo(ReturnAddress); Result := ModInfo.LineNumber; end; [/delphi] ReturnAddress is a compiler magic function in the system unit, introduced with Delphi XE2. TJclLocationInfo and GetLocationInfo … Continue reading Getting the current line number in Delphi →

In recent Delphi you cannot rely on dividing by zero to raise an exception

This is mostly a note to self: Having been stuck with Delphi 2007 for many years I didn't notice that dividing floating point values by zero no longer raises an exception in recent Delphi versions. Apparently this changed around the time of Delphi 10.1, even though I found a blog post by Dalija Prasnikar saying … Continue reading In recent Delphi you cannot rely on dividing by zero to raise an exception →

Debug visualizers for my TNullable types

My dzlib contains several nullable data types which internally use an interface field to maintain the IsValid value as originally suggested by Alan Bauer in a post on his long defunct Codegear blog "The Oracle at Delphi". Today I added debug vizualizers for these types to my dzDebugVisualizer package. Rather than showing the two fields … Continue reading Debug visualizers for my TNullable types →

(Multi line) string Debug Visualizer for Delphi 10.2

The (multi-line) string Debug Visualizer previously available for Delphi 2005 to 2007 is now also implemented for Delphi 10.2 using the OTAPI interface. It shows the content of a string without quotes and with line breaks if it contains any. The implementation was much more complex than I thought. Originally I just used a simple … Continue reading (Multi line) string Debug Visualizer for Delphi 10.2 →

TColor debug visualizer for Delphi 10.2 and 12

I just extended my dzDebugVisualizer package to include a TColor debug visualizer for Delphi 10.2 and Delphi 12. With little change these will probably work for every Delphi Version that supports the neccessary ToolsApi functions, meaning >= Delphi 2010. This is completely different code than I used before, but it still shows the color name(s) … Continue reading TColor debug visualizer for Delphi 10.2 and 12 →