[DUG] Unicode help in D7

Thu Oct 4 09:06:35 NZDT 2012

Thats one of the advantages of how they did the upgrade – if you use the same D7 code on XE2/3 and using standard methods of writing to files such as FileStream or TStringlist.savetofile then you will find that the strings in memory are Unicode, and saved to disk will be ANSI by default (you have to specify to save as Unicode as a format to get it).   ie it is pretty close to “it just works”.  Source code similarly remains ANSI until you start saving Unicode strings – in that case it automatically switches to unicode.

John Bird

From: Ross Levis 
Sent: Wednesday, October 03, 2012 6:15 PM
To: 'NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List' 
Subject: Re: [DUG] Unicode help in D7

I know what your saying, but it won’t be a biggie if I upgrade one day.

I store filenames in text files on the hard drive and also in RAM, and some customers have 500,000+ files.  Doubling the RAM and hard drive space requirements doesn’t appeal when most of my customers are in western countries.  That is my main reason to use UTF-8 over UTF-16.

Ross.

From: delphi-bounces at listserver.123.net.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces at listserver.123.net.nz] On Behalf Of John Bird
Sent: Wednesday, 3 October 2012 12:03 p.m.
To: muellers at orcl-toolbox.com; NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
Subject: Re: [DUG] Unicode help in D7

I would second upgrading to XE2/XE3 as almost all of the Unicode housekeeping is done automatically in later versions of Delphi – and if you start coding for AnsiChar/WideChar etc then you will have considerable code to unwind when you do convert as the workarounds are not needed

John Bird

From: Stefan Mueller 

Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2012 11:57 PM

To: 'NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List' 

Subject: Re: [DUG] Unicode help in D7

The problem with storing Unicode in utf8 is that the caller always needs to know whether a string contains ansi or utf8 and that can get messy/buggy real quick if you have a big project

I am sure you have thought about it and you have your own reason. But as far as I am concerned, if you go down that road to slowly Unicode enable your application (including later on maybe Form captions, labels, edits, listboxes, etc) then using widestring and something like TNT library on delphi7 is the easiest way (or upgrade to >delphi2009)

Kind Regards,
Stefan Mueller 
_______________________
R&D Manager
ORCL Toolbox LLP, Japan
http://www.orcl-toolbox.com

From: delphi-bounces at listserver.123.net.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces at listserver.123.net.nz] On Behalf Of Ross Levis
Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2012 7:25 PM
To: 'NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List'
Subject: Re: [DUG] Unicode help in D7

I’ve hit a snag.

D7 defines IShellLinkW like this.

  IShellLinkW = interface(IUnknown) { sl }

    [SID_IShellLinkW]

    function GetPath(pszFile: PWideChar; cchMaxPath: Integer;

      var pfd: TWin32FindData; fFlags: DWORD): HResult; stdcall;

I think the TWin32FindData should be TWin32FindDataW.  I take it this is a bug, and I’ll define my own one.

Ross.

From: delphi-bounces at listserver.123.net.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces at listserver.123.net.nz] On Behalf Of Ross Levis
Sent: Tuesday, 2 October 2012 10:58 p.m.
To: 'NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List'
Subject: Re: [DUG] Unicode help in D7

Thanks for that.  I did download some free 3rd party components and pas files I found which include a TOpenDialogW, WideFindFirst, WideFileExists, etc.  They should be all I need.

I’ll actually be storing everything in UTF8 and converting backwards and forwards to full unicode as required for the Windows API.  That way I can keep most of my code using the default AnsiString, standard TStringLists, etc.

For me it would be useful if someone had created a set of UTF8 components.  I find it so much easier to work with.  I’ve created a UTF8FileExists function, for example.  I suppose later Delphi versions to the conversions automatically.

Cheers,

Ross.

From: delphi-bounces at listserver.123.net.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces at listserver.123.net.nz] On Behalf Of Stefan Mueller
Sent: Tuesday, 2 October 2012 9:22 p.m.
To: 'NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List'
Subject: Re: [DUG] Unicode help in D7

The buffer has to be WideChar if you use the IShellLinkW interface.

I also had my software unicodified with delphi7. I used the TNT components (last free version is here: http://www.axolot.com/TNT/ - it got bought out by TMS software: http://www.tmssoftware.com/site/tmsuni.asp ) and that made things very easy.

The TNT component pack adds Unicode enabled VCL-controls as well as Unicode Windows-API support for many functions(FileOpen,FileCreate,etc) and classes(WideStringList, etc). The library makes it easy to be dealing with Unicode. 

Kind Regards,
Stefan Mueller 
_______________________
R&D Manager
ORCL Toolbox LLP, Japan
http://www.orcl-toolbox.com

From: delphi-bounces at listserver.123.net.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces at listserver.123.net.nz] On Behalf Of Ross Levis
Sent: Tuesday, October 02, 2012 5:00 PM
To: 'NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List'
Subject: [DUG] Unicode help in D7

I’m adding a small amount of Unicode support in my D7 app to enable opening files where the filenames are in foreign languages.  Currently my app can’t even open these files.  I’ve installed an OpenFile dialog which provides WideString results.

One thing I need is to resolve shortcuts.  I have converted the following function which I had for ANSI filenames into Unicode.  Just IShellLinkW and TWin32FindDataW changed.

function ResolveShortcut(const LinkPath: WideString): WideString;

var

ShellLink: IShellLinkW

  FindData: TWin32FindDataW;

  buff: Array [0..Max_Path-1] of Char;

begin

  ShellLink := CreateComObject(CLSID_ShellLink) as IShellLinkW;

PersistFile := ShellLink as IPersistFile;

  if (PersistFile.Load(PWideChar(LinkPath),STGM_READ) = S_OK) and

   (ShellLink.Resolve(Application.Handle, SLR_NO_UI) = NOERROR) and

   (ShellLink.GetPath(buff,MAX_PATH,FindData,SLGP_UNCPRIORITY)= NOERROR) then

    Result := buff

  else Result := ''

end;

But I’m not sure if the buff array should be of WideChar or left as Char.

Does MAX_PATH assume wide characters?

Thanks,

Ross.

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