Delphi Programming Book

[In Libman]

Delphiis a general-purpose programming language and a software product that uses the Delphi dialect of the Object Pascal programming language and provides an integrated development environment (IDE) for rapid application development of desktop, mobile, web, and console software,[3] currently developed and maintained by Embarcadero Technologies.

Delphi includes a code editor, a visual designer, an integrated debugger, a source code control component, and support for third-party plugins. The code editor features Code Insight (code completion), Error Insight (real-time error-checking), and refactoring. The visual forms designer has the option of using either the Visual Component Library (VCL) for pure Windows development or the FireMonkey (FMX) framework for cross-platform development. Database support is a key feature and is provided by FireDAC (Database Access Components). Delphi is known for its fast compilation speed, native code, and developer productivity.[citation needed]

Delphi was originally developed by Borland as a rapid application development tool for Windows as the successor of Turbo Pascal. Delphi added full object-oriented programming to the existing language, and the language has grown to support generics, anonymous methods, closures, and native Component Object Model (COM) support.

Delphi and its C++ counterpart, C++Builder, are interoperable and jointly sold under the name RAD Studio. There are Professional, Enterprise, and Architect editions, with the higher editions having more features at a higher price. There is also a free-of-charge Community edition, with most of the features of Professional, but restricted to users and companies with low revenue.[7]

Delphi uses the Pascal-based programming language Object Pascal created by Anders Hejlsberg for Borland (now IDERA) as the successor to Turbo Pascal. It supports native cross-compilation to many platforms including Windows, Linux, iOS and Android.

To better support development for Microsoft Windows and interoperate with code developed with other software development tools, Delphi supports independent interfaces of Component Object Model (COM) with reference counted class implementations, and support for many third-party components. Interface implementations can be delegated to fields or properties of classes. Message handlers are implemented by tagging a method of a class with the integer constant of the message to handle.[citation needed]

Delphi uses a strongly typed high-level programming language, intended to be easy to use and originally based on the earlier Object Pascal language. Pascal was originally developed as a general-purpose language "suitable for expressing the fundamental constructs known at the time in a concise and logical way", and "its implementation was to be efficient and competitive with existing FORTRAN compilers"[8] but without low-level programming facilities or access to hardware. Turbo Pascal and its descendants, including Delphi, support access to hardware and low-level programming, with the facility to incorporate code written in assembly language and other languages. Delphi's object orientation features only class- and interface-based polymorphism.[9] Metaclasses are first class objects. Objects are references to the objects (as in Java), which Delphi implicitly de-references, so there is usually no need to manually allocate memory for pointers to objects or use similar techniques that some other languages need. There are dedicated reference-counted string types, and also null-terminated strings.

Strings can be concatenated by using the '+' operator, rather than using functions. For dedicated string types, Delphi handles memory management without programmer intervention. Since Borland Developer Studio 2006, there are functions to locate memory leaks.

Delphi includes an integrated IDE. The Delphi products all ship with a run-time library (RTL) and a Visual Component Library (VCL), including most of its source code. Third-party components (sometimes with full source code) and tools to enhance the IDE or for other Delphi related development tasks are available, some free of charge. The IDE includes a GUI for localization and translation of created programs that may be deployed to a translator; there are also third-party tools with more features for this purpose. The VCL framework maintains a high level of source compatibility between versions, which simplifies updating existing source code to a newer Delphi version. Third-party libraries typically need updates from the vendor but, if source code is supplied, recompilation with the newer version may be sufficient. The VCL was an early adopter of dependency injection or inversion of control; it uses a reusable component model, extensible by the developer. With class helpers, new functionality can be introduced to core RTL and VCL classes without changing the original source code of the RTL or VCL.

The compiler is optimizing and is a single-pass compiler. It can optionally compile to a single executable which does not require DLLs. Delphi can also generate standard DLLs, ActiveX DLLs, COM automation servers and Windows services.

The Delphi IDEs since Delphi 2005 increasingly support refactoring features such as method extraction and the possibility to create UML models from the source code or to modify the source through changes made in the model.

Delphi is one of the languages where backward compatibility is close to 100%. Although each new release of Delphi attempts to keep as much backward compatibility as possible to allow existing code reuse, new features, new libraries, and improvements sometimes make newer releases less than 100% backward compatible.

Embarcadero publishes "roadmaps" describing their future development plans. The most recent one was published in November 2020.[12] Version 10.5 referred to in the November 2020 roadmap was renamed 11.0.

The Embarcadero YouTube channel delves into more advanced topics with hundreds of hours of free instruction on things like connecting to a REST service, working with LiveBindings, and connecting to over twenty different databases with FireDAC.

The Embarcadero YouTube channel features hundreds of hours of advanced learning about Delphi on topics such as parallel programming, getting the best performance out of your apps, artificial intelligence, and more!

All educational and instructional content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Please reuse it in learning and teaching programming with Delphi.

Delphi IDE is a Rapid Application Development (RAD) environment. The ease of use of data-aware components makes it the ultimate tool for application development. It helps establish the connection to data servers, fetch and manipulate data, and post it back. When data handling reliability is a must, there is a huge chance that the Delphi language lies behind it. With Delphi Data Components , users can develop multi-platform applications in Embarcadero RAD Studio, Delphi, C++Builder, Lazarus, and Free Pascal on Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, and Android, for both 32-bit and 64-bit platform.

Numerous applications are written in this language, including antivirus, system tools, backup software, etc. Even AI implementations, machine learning apps, and image manipulation software rely on Delphi.

The first version of the Delphi computer language was for developing applications in MS Windows 3.1. Years and years passed, and what is Delphi now? Let us review its primary advantages and features in detail.

VCL and FMX frameworks can be adapted according to developers' needs. You can use an existing visual control or a non-visual component to create a new one, enhancing or directing its way of working. Also, it supports the entire Windows API and results in native windows .exe files that run even under Vine emulation in Linux.

There is no need to keep and maintain distinct codes in different languages for different platforms. The same code suits Windows, Android, macOS, iOS, and Linux platforms. Developers may use compiler directives to cover specific areas on the target platform itself.

Delphi (programming language) gets frequent updates with minimal need for maintenance from the developers' side. To ensure support for new Windows or Android versions, you need to move code from one Delphi version to another. Third-party components are also updated as soon as the new version is out.

Delphi compiles to Native code. It does not matter if it is for Windows, Android, macOS, or else. Java compiles to bytecode, and apps run under a VM interpreter or a Java runtime which exists almost everywhere.

Java has a syntax of its own that resembles C. What type of programming language is Delphi? It is object-Pascal. It is a matter of preference, but many pundits consider Object Pascal more comprehensive.

Both C++ and Delphi are non-interpreted. They are compiled, native programming languages based on old-school approaches. Both are fast, though C++ is slightly faster in calculations alone. But when it comes to Strings, Delphi development language is much faster.

The advantages of script languages are their simplicity and portability, but they are slower. Also, when code is compiled, all errors in code (not bugs) are found at once. When the code is interpreted, the error will appear only when the code reaches that point.

Delphi is still here, 25+ years since its birth, reliable, consistent, and continuously updated to face modern needs. Skilled Delphi programmers are highly needed and appreciated in industries that rely on database servers.

It depends on what your intentions are. If your interest is academic, then the answer is yes. Learning Delphi will make you a better programmer, Delphi is as powerful as C++ but in a more comprehensive, readable form that will help you understand ideas like inheritance between objects or memory management, among others.

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