UNICODESTRING vs ANSISTRING

[Ñuño Martínez]

Sorry for the double post, but I have to say this: the solution was trivial

While testing I discovered that function StrPas (used internally to force some callings to overloaded functions in my abstraction layer unit) were in a different unit in modern Delphi (AnsisString instead of SysUtils), so I added it to be used only in Delphi. Since then warnings appeared again and I was like WTF Delphi is trolling me... But using the Find declaration command to see the actual declaration of Format I discovered AnsiString also defines it's own version using ANSISTRING instead of UNICODESTRING!

Note it doesn't avoid the need of the abstraction layer unit, but it simplifies a lot the implementation of this unit (and avoids to call an extra function internally in other units). For example:

  USES
  {$IFDEF ISDELPHI2009ANDUP}
  { This unit implements sysutils using ANSISTRING instead of UNICODESTRING,
    which is the default in modern Delphi compilers. }
    AnsiStrings;
  {$ELSE}
    sysutils;
  {$ENDIF}

··· 

  FUNCTION al_str_format (CONST Fmt: AL_STR; CONST Args : ARRAY OF CONST)
    : AL_STR;
  BEGIN
    Format (Fmt, Args)
  END;

This way there's no need of conditional compilation outside Allegro.pas.

So, now we know.

[SilverWarior]

Wait Delphi has a special unit just for dealing with ANSI strings? I must shamefully admit that I didn't knew that

[Ñuño Martínez]

Well, you know now.

Anyway I think they should add an option to tell the compiler to define STRING as ANSISTRING, as FPC does with {$unicodestrings} or something. That would help a lot porting and maintaining code.

[pitfiend]

Mother of Strings!!! it's highly inefficient and error prone to have multiple, obscure and undocumented units to deal with the same task.

[Ñuño Martínez]

If you mean the AnsiStrings unit, I agree. If I were Delphi developer I would overload the functions adding UNICODESTRING, without breaking backwards compatibility.

If you mean my al5strings... well, I didn't found a better solution.

[pitfiend]

I meant AnsiStrings unit. That's a mistake. Your al5strings unit is a fix on a mistake made by others.