function leftstr(s:string; n:Integer):string;
var
i:integer;
t:string;
begin
//init var t
t := '';
for i := 0 to n do
begin
//main loop
t := t + s[i];
end;
//return results
Result:=t;
end;
So when I run this function and use ShowMessage to get the value of t in each increment of i, t is always blank. Can someone tell me the problem? This is compiled using Delphi XE6
The problem is that strings use 1-based indexing and you are accessing out of bounds. Your loop should be:
for i := 1 to n do
Probably what happens is that s[0] refers to some part of the string's meta data (length or reference count, I cannot remember which) that happens to contain a zero byte. This is then interpreted as a null terminator when the string is passed to ShowMessage.
If you had enabled the range checking feature in your compiler options, the compiler would have inserted code that would have found the error for you. This range checking feature is an astonishingly neglected and overlooked feature.
Of course, the function is a little pointless, as well as rather inefficient. You can use LeftStr from the StrUtils unit. Or plain old Copy from the System unit.
I am trying to write an Ada equivalent to the split() method in Java or C++. I am to intake a string and an integer and output two seperate string values. For example:
split of "hello" and 2 would return:
"The first part is he
and the second part is llo"
The code I have is as follows:
-- split.adb splits an input string about a specified position.
--
-- Input: Astring, a string,
-- Pos, an integer.
-- Precondition: pos is in Astring'Range.
-- Output: The substrings Astring(Astring'First..Pos) and
-- Astring(Pos+1..Astring'Last).
--------------------------------------------------------------
with Ada.Text_IO, Ada.Integer_Text_IO, Ada.Strings.Fixed;
use Ada.Text_IO, Ada.Integer_Text_IO, Ada.Strings.Fixed;
procedure Split is
EMPTY_STRING : String := " ";
Astring, Part1, Part2 : String := EMPTY_STRING;
Pos, Chars_Read : Natural;
------------------------------------------------
-- Split() splits a string in two.
-- Receive: The_String, the string to be split,
-- Position, the split index.
-- PRE: 0 < Position <= The_String.length().
-- (Ada arrays are 1-relative by default)
-- Passback: First_Part - the first substring,
-- Last_Part - the second substring.
------------------------------------------------
function Split(TheString : in String ; Pos : in Integer; Part1 : out String ; Part2 : out String) return String is
begin
Move(TheString(TheString'First .. Pos), Part1);
Move(TheString(Pos .. TheString'Last), Part2);
return Part1, Part2;
end Split;
begin -- Prompt for input
Put("To split a string, enter the string: ");
Get_Line(Astring, Chars_Read);
Put("Enter the split position: ");
Get(Pos);
Split(Astring, Pos, Part1, Part2);
Put("The first part is ");
Put_Line(Part1);
Put(" and the second part is ");
Put_Line(Part2);
end Split;
The main part I am having trouble with is returning the two separate string values and in general the whole split() function. Any pointers or help is appreciated. Thank you
Instead of a function, consider making Split a procedure having two out parameters, as you've shown. Then decide if Pos is the last index of Part1 or the first index of Part2; I've chosen the latter.
procedure Split(
TheString : in String; Pos : in Integer;
Part1 : out String; Part2 : out String) is
begin
Move(TheString(TheString'First .. Pos - 1), Part1);
Move(TheString(Pos .. TheString'Last), Part2);
end Split;
Note that String indexes are Positive:
type String is array(Positive range <>) of Character;
subtype Positive is Integer range 1 .. Integer'Last;
Doing this is so trivial, I'm not sure why you'd bother making a routine for it. Just about any routine you could come up with is going to be much harder to use anyway.
Front_Half : constant String := Original(Original'first..Index);
Back_Half : constant String := Original(Index+1..Original'last);
Done.
Note that static Ada strings are very different than strings in other languages like C or Java. Due to their static nature, they are best built either inline like I've done above, or as return values from functions. Since functions cannot return more than one value, a single unified "split" routine is just plain not a good fit for static Ada string handling. Instead, you should either do what I did above, call the corresponding routines from Ada.Strings.Fixed (Head and Tail), or switch to using Ada.Strings.Unbounded.Unbounded_String instead of String.
The latter is probably the easiest option, if you want to keep your Java mindset about string handling. If you want to really learn Ada though, I'd highly suggest you learn to deal with static fixed Strings the Ada way.
From looking over your code you really need to read up in general on the String type, because you're dragging in a lot of expectations in from other languages on how to work with them--which aren't going to work with them. Ada's String type is not one of its more flexible features, in that they are always fixed length. While there are ways of working around the limitations in a situation such as you're describing, it would be much easier to simply use Unbounded_Strings.
The input String to your function could remain of type String, which will adjust to the length of the string that you provide to it. The two output Unbounded_Strings then are simply set to the sliced string components after invoking To_Unbounded_String() on each of them.
Given the constraints of your main program, with all strings bounded by the size of EMPTY_STRING. the procedure with out parameters is the correct approach, with the out parameter storage allocated by the caller (on the stack as it happens)
That is not always the case, so it is worth knowing another way. The problem is how to deal with data whose size is unknown until runtime.
Some languages can only offer runtime allocation on the heap (via "new" or "malloc") and can only access the data via pointers, leaving a variety of messy problems including accesses off the end of the data (buffer overruns) or releasing the storage correctly (memory leaks, accessing freed pointers etc)
Ada will allow this method too, but it is usually unnecessary and strongly discouraged. Unbounded_String is a wrapper over this method, while Bounded_String avoids heap allocation where you can accept an upper bound on the string length.
But also, Ada allows variable sized data structures to be created on the stack; the technique just involves creating a new stack frame and declaring new variables where you need to, with "declare". The new variables can be initialised with function calls.
Each function can only return one object, but that object's size can be determined at runtime. So either "Split" can be implemented as 2 functions, returning Part1 or Part2, or it can return a record containing both strings. It would be a record with two size discriminants, so I have chosen the simpler option here. The function results are usually built in place (avoids copying).
The flow in your example would require two nested Declare blocks; if "Pos" could be identified first, they could be collapsed into one...
procedure Split is
function StringBefore( Input : String; Pos : Natural) return String is
begin
return Input(1 .. Pos-1);
end StringBefore;
function StringFrom ...
begin
Put("To split a string, enter the string: ");
declare
AString : String := Get_Line;
Pos : Natural;
begin
Put("Enter the split position: ");
Get(Pos);
declare
Part1 : String := StringBefore(AString, Pos);
Part2 : String := StringFrom(AString, Pos);
begin
Put("The first part is ");
Put_Line(Part1);
Put(" and the second part is ");
Put_Line(Part2);
end; -- Part1 and Part2 are now out of scope
end; -- AString is now out of scope
end Split;
This can obviously be wrapped in a loop, with different size strings each time, with no memory management issues.
Look at the Head and Tail functions in Ada.Strings.Fixed.
function Head (Source : in String; Count : in Natural; Pad : in Character := Space) return String;
function Tail (Source : in String; Count : in Natural; Pad : in Character := Space)
return String;
Here's an approach that just uses slices of the string.
with Ada.Text_IO; use Ada.Text_IO;
with Ada.Strings.Fixed; use Ada.Strings.Fixed;
procedure Main is
str : String := "one,two,three,four,five,six,seven,eight";
pattern : String := ",";
idx, b_idx : Integer;
begin
b_idx := 1;
for i in 1..Ada.Strings.Fixed.Count ( Source => str, Pattern => pattern ) loop
idx := Ada.Strings.Fixed.Index( Source => str(b_idx..str'Last), Pattern => pattern);
Put_Line(str(b_idx..idx-1)); -- process string slice in any way
b_idx := idx + pattern'Length;
end loop;
-- process last string
Put_Line(str(b_idx..str'Last));
end Main;
The cyrllic string my app receives uses(I believe) the table below:
said I believe, because all the chars I tested fit this table.
Question: How do I convert such thing to a string, which is unicode by default in my delphi?
Or better yet: Is there a ready-to-use converter in delphi or should I write one?
If you are using Delphi 2009 or later, this is done automatically:
type
CyrillicString = type AnsiString(1251);
procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
var
UnicodeStr: string;
CyrillicStr: CyrillicString;
begin
UnicodeStr := 'This is a test.'; // Unicode string
CyrillicStr := UnicodeStr; // ...converted to 1251
CyrillicStr := 'This is a test.'; // Cryllic string
UnicodeStr := CyrillicStr; // ...converted to Unicode
end;
First of all I recommend you read Marco Cantù's whitepaper on Unicode in Delphi. I am also assuming from your question (and previous questions), that you are using a Unicode version of Delphi, i.e. D2009 or later.
You can first of all define an AnsiString with codepage 1251 to match your input data.
type
CyrillicString = type Ansistring(1251);
This is an important step. It says that any data contained inside a variable of this type is to be interpreted as having been encoded using the 1251 codepage. This allows Delphi to perform correct conversions to other string types, as we will see later.
Next copy your input data into a string of this variable.
function GetCyrillicString(const Input: array of Byte): CyrillicString;
begin
SetLength(Result, Length(Input));
if Length(Result)>0 then
Move(Input[0], Result[1], Length(Input));
end;
Of course, there may be other, more convenient ways to get the data in. Perhaps it comes from a stream. Whatever the case, make sure you do it with something equivalent to a memory copy so that you don't invoke code page conversions and thus lose the 1251 encoding.
Finally you can simply assign a CyrillicString to a plain Unicode string variable and the Delphi runtime performs the necessary conversion automatically.
function ConvertCyrillicToUnicode(const Input: array of Byte): string;
begin
Result := GetCyrillicString(Input);
end;
The runtime is able to perform this conversion because you specified the codepage when defining CyrillicString and because string maps to UnicodeString which is encoded with UTF-16.
Windows API MultiByteToWideChar() and WideCharToMultiByte() can be used to convert to and from any supported code page in Windows. Of course if you use Delphi >= 2009 it is easier to use the native unicode support.
I've just encountered a weird problem. I am trying to load a model to OpenGL and in the part where I load textures I use auxDIBImageLoadA(dibfile:PWideChar) function. Here is my code calling it
procedure CreateTexture(var textureArray: array of UINT; strFileName: string; textureID: integer); // Vytvožení textury
var
pBitmap: PTAUX_RGBImageRec;
begin
if strFileName = '' then exit;
MessageBox(0,PWideChar(strFileName),nil,SW_SHOWNORMAL);
pBitmap := auxDIBImageLoadA(PWideChar(strFileName));
if pBitmap = nil then exit;
...
The MessageBox is just for control. This is what happens: I run the application, a box with "FACE.BMP" appears. Okay. But then I get an error saying "Failed to open DIB file F". When i set the stFileName to xFACE.BMP, I get an "Failed to open DIB file x". So for some reason it appears that the function is taking only the first char.
Am I missing something? I'm using glaux.dll which I downloaded like 5 times from different sources, so it should be bug-free (I hope, every OpenGL site referred to it).
That's odd, functions ending in "A" generally take PAnsiChar pointers, and those ending in "W" take PWideChar pointers. Is there a auxDIBImageLoadW call also? If there is use that one, or try with PAnsiChar, since the PWideChar you pass (two bytes per position) would look like a string one character long if it is evaluated as a 1-byte string.
You need to convert your Unicode string to ANSI. Do it like this
pBitmap := auxDIBImageLoadA (PAnsiChar(AnsiString(strFileName)))
You would be better off calling the Unicode version though
pBitmap := auxDIBImageLoadW (PWideChar(strFileName))
The situation: I’ve an external DLL that uses UTF-8 as its internal string format. The interface functions all use PAnsiChar to pass strings along.
The rest of my application uses Delphi’s native string type; since I’m working with Delphi 2010, that will map to a UnicodeString.
How can I reliably cast those PAnsiChar arguments (which are pointing to UTF-8 encoded strings) to a UnicodeString?
I had this function, which I thought worked fine:
function PUTF8CharToString(Text: PAnsiChar): string;
var
UText: UTF8String;
begin
UText := UTF8String(Text);
Result := string(UText);
end;
...but now I’ve run into a case where the result string is corrupted; when I save the PAnsiChar to file, it’s fine; but when I save the resulting string after conversion using the above function, it’s corrupted.
Or should this work correctly, and is this indicative of some other memory (de)allocation problem?
Edit: I finally managed to get rid of the memory corruption by assigning the converted string to a local variable string, instead of directly passing it to another function.
From System:
function UTF8ToUnicodeString(const S: PAnsiChar): UnicodeString; overload;
UnicodeStr := System.Utf8ToUnicodeString(Text);
Try using SetString() instead of casting:
function PUTF8CharToString(Text: PAnsiChar): string;
var
UText: UTF8String;
begin
SetString(UText, Text, StrLen(Text));
Result := UText;
end;