BLAISE

BLAISE PASCAL
PASCAL MAGAZINE
MAGAZINE
D E L P H I, L A Z A R U S, O X Y G E N E, S M A R T M O B I L E,
A N D P A S C AL
A N D R O I D, I O S,
R E L A T E D
M A C,
L A N G U A G E S
W I N D O W S & L I N U X
40

D E L P H I - S T E P H E N B A L L
- I N T E R B A S E C H A N G E V I E W S

D E L P H I XE 8 - P A W E L G L O W A C K I
- I N T R O D U C T I O N T O F L A T B O X 2D

D E L P H I - D E T L E F O V E R B E E K
F R O M D E L P H I T O D E L P H I
W H Y T H E N A M E D E L P H I

D E L P H I - C A R Y J E N S E N - C L I E N T D A T A S E T S
A N D FD M E M T A B L E S C O M P A R E D: P A R T 2

S T A R T W I T H F U N C T I O N T E S T I N G (M A X B O X)
- M A X K L E I N E R

D E L P H I - J E R E M Y N O R T H
W O R K I N G W I T H B E A C O N S I N D E L P H I XE 8

P R I N T E D I S S U E P R I C E 1 5, 0 0
D O W N L O A D I S S U E P R I C E 5, 0 0
BLAISE
BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE 40
PASCAL MAGAZINE
D E L P H I, L A Z A R U S, S M A R T M O B I L E S T U D I O,
A N D P A S C A L R E L A T E D L A N G U A G E S
F O R A N D R O I D, I O S, M A C, W I N D O W S & L I N U X

CONTENTS

Articles

Interbase Change Views

- By Stephen Ball Page 5
From Delphi to Delphi, overview of the Delphi history
- By Editor Page 8
Delphi - the city
- By Editor Page 13
Why the name Delphi?
- By Editor Page 14
Introduction to FlatBox2D for Delphi XE8
- By Pawel Glowacki Page 16
ClientDataSets and FDMemTables Compared: Part 2
- Cary Jensen Page 24
Start with Function Testing (maXbox)
- By MaxKleiner Page 31
Working with Bluetooth beacons in Delphi XE8
- Jeremy North Page 40

MOTION

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BetterOffice 36
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Cary Jensen (Jensen Data Sytems) 30
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Computer Math & Games 4
Daniel Teti 12
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2 Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE

Stephen Ball Peter Bijlsma Michal Van Canneyt,
http://delphiaball.co.uk -Editor peter @ blaisepascal.eu michael @ freepascal.org
@DelphiABall

Marco Cant David Dirkse Daniele Teti

www.marcocantu.com www.davdata.nl www.danieleteti.it
marco.cantu @ gmail.com E-mail: David @ davdata.nl d.teti@bittime.it

Bruno Fierens Primo Gabrijeli

www.tmssoftware.com www.
bruno.fierens @ tmssoftware.com primoz @ gabrijelcic.org

Cary Jensen Max Kleiner Wagner R. Landgraf

www.jensendatasystems.com www.softwareschule.ch wagner @ tmssoftware.com
http://caryjensen.blogspot.nl max@kleiner.com

Kim Madsen
www.component4developers

Jeremy North Benno Evers

jeremy.north @ gmail.com b.evers
@everscustomtechnology.nl

Detlef Overbeek Howard Page Clark Rik Smit

www.blaisepascal.eu E-mail: hdpc @ talktalk.net -Editor rik @ blaisepascal.eu
Email:editor @ blaisepascal.eu

Bob Swart Wim Van Ingen Schenau

www.eBob42.com -Editor
Bob @ eBob42.com wisone @ xs4all.nl

Please note: extra space characters have been deliberately added around the @ symbol in
these email addresses, which need to be removed if you use them.
editor @ blaisepascal.eu
Authors - Christian name in alphabethical order
A Alexander Alexeev, L Wagner R. Landgraf, Sergey Lyubeznyy
B Stephen Ball, Peter Bijlsma, Dmitry Boyarintsev K Max Kleiner
C Michal Van Canneyt, Marco Cant, M Kim Madsen, Felipe Monteiro de Cavalho
D David Dirkse, Daniele Teti N Jeremy North,
F Bruno Fierens O Tim Opsteeg, Inoussa Ouedraogo
G Primo Gabrijeli, Mattias Gaertner P Howard Page-Clark,
H Fikret Hasovic S Rik Smit, Bob Swart,
J Cary Jensen Z Siegfried Zuhr

Editor - in - chief
Detlef D. Overbeek, Netherlands Tel.: +31 (0)30 890.66.44 / Mobile: +31 (0)6 21.23.62.68
News and Press Releases email only to editor@blaisepascal.eu

Editors
Peter Bijlsma, W. (Wim) van Ingen Schenau, Rik Smit,
Correctors
Howard Page-Clark, James D. Duff
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Caveat Whilst we endeavour to ensure that what is published in the magazine is correct, we cannot accept responsibility for any errors or omissions.
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Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE 3

DAVID DIRKSE
presales at
www.blaisepascal.eu/DavidDirkse/ComputerMath_Games.html

procedure ;
var
begin
for i := 1 to 9 do
begin

end;
end;

BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE

is proud to announce the first
edition of David Dirkses book:

COMPUTER MATH &

GAMES IN PASCAL
INTERBASE CHANGE VIEWS
starter expert
Delphi XE 7
BY STEPHEN BALL
This is an article on InterBase Change
Views and is intended to be a high level
overview of the new powerful change view
technology that is patent pending and part
of InterBase. Following this post I plan to
show more posts taking the concept of
Change Views into the real world with
some real application examples.
InterBase Change Views
InterBase XE7 introduces a new way to track
data changes to the database called Change
Views.
Change Views are a new subscription based
model allowing you to subscribe to data; once
subscribed you are able to ask the database at a
later time, spanning connections, for what has
changed.
This is an especially cool, low cost way to
reduce network traffic, mobile data costs and
development time when tasked with keeping
multiple remote database caches up to date.
(especially if you have large tables to keep up dated).
Change Views reduce the upfront planning
required, reduce the risk of errors and
drastically make simpler the task of building in
data change tracking..
Best of all change views has zero impact on
database performance regardless of the number
of subscribers!
Subscription & Subscribers
A core concept to change views is that of
Subscriptions and Subscribers.
InterBase Change view allows multiple
subscribers to a subscription.
A subscription is defined once and then can be
connected to by multiple users. Once defined,
you can control who can subscribe thanks to the
InterBase inbuilt user security.
Subscriptions work at field level and can be
defined to track either an entire table or
multiple tables. Subscriptions can also be
defined to track Inserts, Updates or Deletes (or
a mix of)
Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE
Multiple devices per subscriber
In addition to allowing specific users to
subscribe to data, you can use a single user
to have multiple destinations that are
subscribing. This allows a user to subscribe
for different devices such as their Phone,
Tablet, Laptop or for a single user to be
used programatically to distinguish
multiple sites e.g. Office 1, Office 2 etc.
This is done using the at verb when
connecting to the subscription.
What Change Views are not!
Change Views are not an auditing system.
While you can track deleted records, Change
View are about identifying what has changed
without keeping every value that it has been. If
you want to do that, then continue to use
Triggers and logging tables for the values you
need to audit.
Creating a Change View
If you have ever spent time planning how to
identify what data has changed, then change
views is about to simplify the way you develop
for ever!
Steps for creating a Change View
Rather than having to create and manage
triggers to add records into log tables or
planning additional date fields into your
metadata (and hoping date & time changes
dont effect you) Change View are easily added
to a project once the simplified architecture is
complete.
There are two essential steps in creating a
successful change view:
Defining the purpose of the Change View
and the data you want to track.
Defining who can subscribe to the change
view.
InterBase XE7 is a full-featured, high performance,
encryptable, multiplatform and scalable relational
database for developers who are looking to embed a
low-cost, zero admin, lightweight secure database
into their cross platform connected applications.
With InterBase XE7 you get powerful
access control, data change
management, disaster recovery and
journaling, as well as support for
popular database drivers for increased
deployment flexibility.
5
INTERBASE CHANGE VIEWS (CONTINUATION 1)
1 Creating a change view
Lets start with a simple example. We want to
keep our sales fulfilment application up-to-date
with the latest stock and suppliers information.
This data is stored in two tables, INVENTORY
and SUPPLIERS.
Example 1 Multiple Tables
CREATE SUBSCRIPTION
sub_stock
ON
INVENTORY FOR ROW (INSERT, UPDATE,
DELETE),
SUPPLIERS FOR ROW (INSERT, UPDATE,
DELETE)
DESCRIPTION 'Track stock and
supplier changes';
Subscriptions are created with the CREATE
SUBSCRIPTION statement followed by a
subscription name that you will need to use in
SQL later on.
The simple example tracks all columns in the
tables INVENTORY and SUPPLIERS for Inserts,
Updates and Deletes.
The description allows easy identification of the
subscriptions purpose later on.
Example 2 Specifying Columns
We may have a requirement to track product
name changes for our application. We can do
this also with a change view.
CREATE SUBSCRIPTION
sub_stockname
ON
INVENTORY(ITEM_NAME) FOR
ROW (INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE)
DESCRIPTION 'Track stock name
changes';
Example 2 is more granular than Example 1
and tracks only a single column ITEM_NAME in
the INVENTORY table.
This is done by providing a comma separated
list of field names for the table that you want to
track.
Here you can see the
embedded Video for InterBase.
That means if you click on the
item in the pdf file you can see
the video without use of the
internet...
6 Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE
Example 3 Tracking Deletes
We may also want to track deletions from a
specific table, lets say ORDERS. A Change
Views just tracking DELETE activity on a table
CREATE SUBSCRIPTION
sub_orderDeletes
ON
ORDERS FOR
ROW (DELETE)
DESCRIPTION 'Track Order Deletions';
Using a Change View to track deletes is a
powerful feature as you can completely recover
the record at its state when it was deleted.
2 Defining who can use a change
view / subscription
Once a subscription is created, you need to
grant SUBSCRIBE access to the subscription.
To do this use the standard GRANT syntax. e.g.
(for user SYSDBA)
GRANT SUBSCRIBE ON SUBSCRIPTION
sub_stock TO SYSDBA;
In the comming instructions we are going to
explore how to use a Change View to collect
data that has changed in your subscription.
Using an InterBase Change View to fetch data
deltas
Once a Change View Subscription has been
created and access to it has been granted (to
either users or roles), then its time to start using
your Change View!
The following steps are the high level overview
of using a Change View.
Start a Transaction in SnapShot isolation
mode.
Set the Subscription active
Run your select statement to fetch you delta
Once you have collected the delta commit
your transaction to bring your Change View up
to date.
INTERBASE CHANGE VIEWS (CONTINUATION 2 - END)
SnapShot Mode
A bit of background as we all love to know how
things work..
InterBase is powered by a multi-generational
architecture which is exceptionally useful when
data integrity is important. imagine you need to
run multiple financial reports while the system is
live; Imagine a connection drops part way
through a big data change how do you know
what has changed? Multi-generational
architectures and transactions makes this
possible.
Using a transaction set to SnapShot mode we
have a stable point in time that means even if
records are updated at the same time as your
transaction, they are not missed. When you start
your next transaction you will locate those
concurrently made changes! imagine trying to
do that with date time stamp tracking!
This means you can have multiple users
updating the data at the same time safely
without having to lock the tables
Setting the subscription active
At this point, lets pretend we have a
STOCK table and we run the following
statement
Select * from STOCK
the data returned would be all the
STOCK records. How do we get from
here to just getting changed data deltas? Well,
first we need to activate the subscription and
provide an ID that we are going to track against.
set subscription sub_stock at
'DeviceID' active;
With the subscription sub_stock active, running
the initial statement will again return all records
as its the first time data has been requested in the
subscription.
At this point there are two possible next steps:
Commit or Rollback.
Rollback of the transaction will ensure the data is
provided again, Commit will bring the
Subscription up to date for the start of the
transaction.
Running the Select statement again in an active
transaction with the subscription active will now
return only deltas
6
Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE
Preventing you data changes showing in your
Change View delta
So we have covered selecting data, but what
about updating data? How do you stop the
changes to data you make appearing in your
subscription yet still available to others? Well
simply, make the changes while your
subscription is active.
Start a Transaction in SnapShot isolation
mode.
Set the Subscription active (using your ID)
Run your update statement to modify the data
Commit your transaction.
Simples!
Introduction to Change Views Video on
Embarcadero website
To see a Change View code example see the
InterBase XE7 FirstLook webinar:
https://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=h5E1QvZ1rG8
About the Author:
Stephen Ball has lead development teams for
over a decade within the UK and across
Europe working with a range of blue chip
companies including Hilton, American
Express, Fitness First, Virgin Active;
Stephen is a Chartered IT Professional and is
the Associate Product Manager for InterBase
and also a Product Evangelist for RAD Studio,
regularly speaking across EMEA.
Stephen Ball
http://delphiaball.co.uk/2015/03/06/
interbase-change-views-example-demo-
skill-sprint/
7
OVERVIEW OF DELPHI TO DELPHI HISTORY
DELPHI XE8
On February 8, 2006 Borland announced that it was looking for a
buyer for its IDE and database line of products, including Delphi, to
concentrate on its ALM line. On November 14, 2006 Borland transferred
the development tools group to an independent subsidiary company
named CodeGear, instead of selling it. Borland sold CodeGear to
Embarcadero Technologies in 2008.
Embarcadero Technologies in 2008. Embarcadero retained the
CodeGear division created by Borland to identify its tool and database Codegear Delphi 2007.
offerings, but identified its own database tools under the DatabaseGear
DELPHI 7 released in August 2002

DELPHI
released February 14, 1995
The roots of Turbo Pascal v1.0 started in Denmark.
The first step, in 1981, was the Blue Label Software Pascal Compiler Turbo Pascal
- BLS Pascal Compiler v1.2, copyright 1981 by Poly-Data microcenter ApS, Developer(s) Anders Hejlsberg while
Strandboulvarden 63, DK 2100 Copenhagen - working at Borland
written by Anders Hejlsberg for the NASCOM kit computer. Operating system CP/M, CP/M-86, DOS,
Windows 3.x, Macintosh
Lisa - Pascal was a Pascal implementation for the Apple Lisa workstation. Platform 8080/Z80, 8085, x86
It was an extension of the earlier Apple Pascal for Apple II machines,
but generated object code for 68000 processors that had to be linked
against the required libraries in the Lisa OS workshop. Windows
Lisa Pascal laid the foundation for the development of Clascal and Mac Pascal
the first implementations of Object Pascal.

Charles Babbage - mathematician Niklaus Wirth

conceived of the first programmable computer in the 1830 born February 15, 1934 He is a Swiss
Babbage never built his Difference Engine computer scientist, best known for
- a mechanical calculator with thousands of parts - designing several programming languages,
because of cost overruns and political disagreements, including Pascal, and for pioneering several
but the inventor passed on plans for its completion, classic topics in software engineering.
and in 1991, the Science Museum in London actually
built it (the printing component was finished in 2000).
As suspected, it actually works.

Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 19 August 1662)

was a French mathematician,
physicist, inventor, writer and Christian philosopher. Discovery of America by Columbus
creates the first calculators Columbus led his three ships - the Nina,
Blaise Pascal starts to gamble - result first statistics the Pinta and the Santa Maria -
out of the Spanish port of Palos on August 3, 1492.

Discovery of Amerca by the Vikings 990 - 1050

Building of Spain 912 and Portugal 800
Building of France 5852 BC
 Decay of the Roman Empire 500
Building of Europe

Archimedes Mathematician
Roman Empire 700 BC
Archimedes of Syracuse was an Ancient
Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer,
inventor, and astronomer.
He is regarded as one of the leading scientists
in classical antiquity. Wikipedia
Born: 287 - 212 BC, Syracuse, Italy

Plato in Classical Attic;

428/427 or 424/423 348/347 BC)
was a philosopher, as well as mathematician,
in Classical Greece.

Euclid Mathematician
Born Mid-4th century BC - 3rd century BC
Residence Alexandria, Hellenistic Egypt
Fields Mathematics Known for
Euclidean geometry / Euclid's Elements
Euclidean algorithm

Pythagoras Philosopher

as a separate pdf download in portrait format.

Pythagoras of Samos was an
Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician,

A combined page 8/9 file is available at page 10

and founder of the religious movement
called Pythagoreanism.
Born: 571 - 495 BC,

Thales Philosopher
Thales of Miletus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Difference Engine No. 1, portion,1832
from Miletus in Asia Minor and one of the
Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle,
regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition.
Born: 624 BC - 546

DELPHI
The cult of Apollo at

You can enlarge this yourself to view the information in greater detail.
Delphi probably
dates back to
the 700s B . C .,

Our authors plan to address each section of this timeline in future magazine articles.
WATER CLOCK - CHINA - BEGINNING OF TIME (BC 4000)
Some authors claim that water clocks appeared in China
as early as 4000 BC
Babbage Difference Engine No. 2
OVERVIEW OF DELPHI TO DELPHI HISTORY
DELPHI XE8
On February 8, 2006 Borland announced that it was
looking for a buyer for its IDE and database line of products,
including Delphi, to concentrate on its ALM line. On November
14, 2006 Borland transferred the development tools group to
Embarcadero Technologies in 2008.
an independent subsidiary company named CodeGear,
instead of selling it. Borland sold CodeGear to Embarcadero Codegear Delphi 2007.
Technologies in 2008. Embarcadero retained the CodeGear DELPHI 7 released in August 2002
division created by Borland to identify its tool and database
offerings, but identified its own database tools under the
DatabaseGear name. DELPHI
The roots of Turbo Pascal v1.0 started in Denmark. The first step,
released February 14, 1995
in 1981, was the Blue Label Software Pascal Compiler - BLS Pascal Turbo Pascal
Compiler v1.2, copyright 1981 by Poly-Data microcenter ApS, Developer(s) Anders Hejlsberg while
Strandboulvarden 63, DK 2100 Copenhagen - written by Anders working at Borland
Hejlsberg for the NASCOM kit computer. Operating system CP/M, CP/M-86, DOS,
Windows 3.x, Macintosh
Lisa - Pascal was a Pascal implementation for the Apple Lisa workstation. Platform 8080/Z80, 8085, x86
It was an extension of the earlier Apple Pascal for Apple II machines,
but generated object code for 68000 processors that had to be linked
against the required libraries in the Lisa OS workshop. Windows
Lisa Pascal laid the foundation for the development of Clascal and Mac Pascal
the first implementations of Object Pascal.

Charles Babbage - mathematician Niklaus Wirth

conceived of the first programmable computer in the 1830s born February 15, 1934 He is a Swiss
Babbage never built his Difference Engine computer scientist, best known for
- a mechanical calculator with thousands of parts - designing several programming languages,
because of cost overruns and political disagreements, including Pascal, and for pioneering several
but the inventor passed on plans for its completion, classic topics in software engineering.
and in 1991, the Science Museum in London actually
built it (the printing component was finished in 2000).
As suspected, it actually works.

Blaise Pascal (19 June 1623 19 August 1662)

was a French mathematician,
physicist, inventor, writer and Christian philosopher. Discovery of America by Columbus
creates the first calculators Columbus led his three ships - the Nina,
Blaise Pascal starts to gamble - result first statistics the Pinta and the Santa Maria -
out of the Spanish port of Palos on August 3, 1492.

Discovery of Amerca by the Vikings 990 - 1050

Building of Spain 912 and Portugal 800
Building of France 5852 BC

Decay of the Roman Empire 500

Building of Europe

Archimedes Mathematician
Roman Empire 700 BC
Archimedes of Syracuse was an Ancient
Greek mathematician, physicist, engineer,
inventor, and astronomer.
He is regarded as one of the leading scientists
in classical antiquity. Wikipedia
Born: 287 - 212 BC, Syracuse, Italy

Plato in Classical Attic;

428/427 or 424/423 348/347 BC)
was a philosopher, as well as mathematician,
in Classical Greece.

Euclid Mathematician
Born Mid-4th century BC - 3rd century BC
Residence Alexandria, Hellenistic Egypt
Fields Mathematics Known for
Euclidean geometry / Euclid's Elements
Euclidean algorithm

Pythagoras Philosopher
Pythagoras of Samos was an
Ionian Greek philosopher, mathematician,
and founder of the religious movement
called Pythagoreanism.
Born: 571 - 495 BC,

Thales Philosopher
Thales of Miletus was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher Difference Engine No. 1, portion,1832
from Miletus in Asia Minor and one of the
Seven Sages of Greece. Many, most notably Aristotle,
regard him as the first philosopher in the Greek tradition.
Born: 624 BC - 546

DELPHI
The cult of Apollo at
Delphi probably
dates back to
the 700s B . C .,

WATER CLOCK - CHINA - BEGINNING OF TIME (BC 4000)

Some authors claim that water clocks appeared in China
as early as 4000 BC
Babbage Difference Engine No. 2
 Click here for all information
and the introductory offer

or call: +31 (0)235422227

http://www.barnsten.com/default/newxe8
 Quick answers to common problems

Delphi Cookbook
HOICE A
SC
50 hands-on recipes to master the power of Delphi for R BLAISE

M
TO

AZING
cross-platform and mobile development on Windows, PASCAL
DI
Mac OS X, Android, and iOS MAGAZINE
E

Daniele Teti

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DELPHI (THE CITY)

is both an archaeological site and a modern town
in Greece on the south-western spur of Mount
Parnassus in the valley of Phocis. In myths
dating to the classical period of Ancient Greece
(510-323 BC), the site of Delphi was believed to
be determined by Zeus when he sought to find
the centre of his "Grandmother Earth" (Ge, Gaea,
or Gaia). He sent two eagles flying from the
eastern and western extremities, and the path of
the eagles crossed over Delphi where the
omphalos, or navel of Gaia was found.
Others relate that it was named Pytho and that
Pythia, the priestess serving as the oracle, was
chosen from their ranks by a group of priestesses
who officiated at the temple.
Apollo's sacred precinct in Delphi was a
panhellenic sanctuary, where every four years,
starting in 586 BC athletes from all over the Greek
world competed in the Pythian Games, one of the
four panhellenic (or stephanitic) games, precursors
of the Modern Olympics. The victors at Delphi
were presented with a laurel crown (stephanos)
which was ceremonially cut from a tree by a boy
who re-enacted the slaying of the Python. Delphi
was set apart from the other games sites because it
hosted the mousikos agon, musical competitions.

Earlier myths include traditions that Pythia, or

the Delphic oracle, already was the site of an
important oracle in the pre-classical Greek world
(as early as 1400 BC) and, rededicated, served as
the major site during classical times for the
worship of the god Apollo after he slew Python,
"a dragon" who lived there and protected the
navel of the Earth.
"Python" (derived from the verb pythein, "to rot")
is claimed by some to be the original name of the
site in recognition of Python which Apollo
defeated. The Homeric Hymn to Delphic Apollo
recalled that the ancient name of this site had
been Krisa

Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE 13

WHY THE NAME "DELPHI?"
Based on an article written in 1999 by building tool, a way to talk to
Danny Thorpe Oracle and other servers.

Borland (for a time Inprise), was the company
that first developed Delphi. It later moved
Delphi development to its CodeGear division,
which was acquired by Embarcadero
Technologies in 2008. Embarcadero continues to
develop the Delphi XE product line.
Borland considered that
a new product codename
should have no obvious
connection to the product,
so that if an eavesdropper
overheard the name in
conversation it would be
unclear which product
was being discussed.
One of the most memorable
product codenames coined
at the company was Buddha (the insiders'
alias for Quattro Pro 4.0, a direct 1-2-3
competitor). This was because Quattro Pro had
to assume the Lotus position!
"Delphi" started out as a beta codename for a
closely guarded, innovative research project at
Borland: a next-generation visual development
environment for Windows based on Borland's
Object Pascal programming language (until then
known as Turbo Pascal).
Gary Whizin, the Borland R&D Manager
favoured the codename Oracle, since by mid-
1993 the strategic decision had been taken to
make database tools and connectivity a central
part of this new Pascal product,
which by then had six months of
intensive research, market
analysis and proof-of-concept
exercises behind it.
How do you talk to an oracle?
"The oracle at Delphi" was the word association
that occurred to Danny Thorpe during one of
many conversations in Gary's office about the
best codename.
His suggestion wasn't an instant hit. It's an old
name, an old place, a pagan temple in the ruins
of a dead civilization. Not exactly an inspiring
association for a new product! As some press
articles later noted, the Delphic Oracle was
famous for giving out cryptic or ambiguous
answers - not a great association for a data
management tool. Asking a question of the oracle
was free to all, but having the oracle's answer
interpreted cost the enquirer many drachmas
(although the marketing guys liked that part).
Overall, though, the "Delphi" codename had a
classier ring to it than most of the other
suggestions that were offered. Pascal is a classic
programming language, so it felt appropriate to
associate a Pascal-based development tool with a
classical Greek brand. Many codenames were
used during the development of that version 1.0
product, a new one being coined for each press
or corporate briefing of the beta product, in the
hope of limiting rumours and allowing Borland
to track the source of any leaks. The aim was to
for Microsoft to discover what Borland was up to
as late as possible.

The research group involved less

than a dozen Borland staff including
Anders Hejlsberg,
Chuck Jazdzewski,
Allen Bauer, Zack Urlocker,
Richard Nelson, Danny Thorpe
and Gary Whizin.
However Gary's preference was
not shared by the rest of the
group who pointed out
the confusion with the identically
named company and their server
product, whereas the new Pascal
development environment was
(then) envisaged as a client

14 Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE

WHY THE NAME "DELPHI?" (CONTINUATION- END)

Towards the end of the development cycle,

Borland marketing dropped the temporary
codenames and started using the Delphi
codename across all prepress and corporate
briefings, and also as the codename for the final
beta releases.
That got the rumour mills talking to each other,
and the tools industry was abuzz with talk about
this secret project at Borland codenamed
"Delphi".

When it came time to pick a retail product name,

the nominations were less than inspiring.
The "functional" name (the name that describes what
the product actually does and is therefore easier to
market and sell), would have been AppBuilder.

This name actually still appears in some Delphi

IDE internals, such as the class name of the IDE
main window; but AppBuilder didn't inspire
people or work well internationally.
Functional names are only functional in their
language of origin.

A few months before Delphi was scheduled for

release Novell shipped their own product called
Visual AppBuilder, which finally laid the Borland
AppBuilder debate to rest.

With the functional name taken out of the

running, many Borlanders suggested using the
Delphi codename as the product name.
However the lead marketing person had
legitimate concerns about the extra effort required
to build name recognition in the marketplace for
an "iconic" (the opposite of a functional) product
name, so he requested a vote of the development
team, who had a large majority in favour of
Delphi. Wider market polls were conducted.

The harder people tried to dismiss "Delphi" as the

product name, the more it gained support.
"Delphi" has a classical ring to it.

The name has endured.

Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE 15

 INTRODUCTION TO FLATBOX2D FOR DELPHI XE8
Pawe Gowacki (Embarcadero)
Physics engines
Welcome to the world of physics!
Welcome to the world of physics! It is difficult
to imagine a game or just a modern app with
a sophisticated user interface without
realistic physics effects. All programmed
games include a software component called a
physics engine that is responsible for realistic
display of physical interactions such as the
bouncing and collision of moving bodies.
Complex physics engines can simulate the
interaction of objects in a 3D space; however
commonly physics simulations are simplified
by being restricted just two dimensions.
Probably the best-known physics engine is
Box2D, used in many popular games,
including super hits like Angry Birds. Box2D
was originally written by Erin Catto and is an
open source C++ library available under the
permissive zlib free software license.
The name flat comes from the fact that original
Box2D implementation was contained in many
smaller files and XE8 support combines these into
flat namespaces. If you examine the Box2D
Pascal source you will see the Embarcadero
copyright notice together with a note that these
units were generated by Delphi-C++ Library
Bridge. The naming convention adopted is for all
Box2D type names to start with b2
These Delphi units are interfaces to compiled
FlatBox2D libraries that need to be deployed with
a Delphi application target. There are four
potential platforms: two desktop (Windows, Mac
OSX) and two mobile (Android and iOS).
Additionally Windows and iOS have two
different compilers for 32-bit and 64-bit support.
You can find the names of these libraries at the
very beginning of the implementation section of
each FlatBox2D unit. The various versions of the
FlatBox2D libraries can be found in bin and
lib folders inside Delphi XE8 installation folders.
They are named as follows, according to the
platform and build configuration:
Windows: FlatBox2DDyn.dll
Mac OS X: libFlatBox2DDyn.dylib
Android: libFlatBox2D.a
iOS: libFlatBox2D.a
The source code for the FlatBox2D library units is
in the Browsing Path in Delphi's global options.
A programmer does not need to do anything to
use them beyond adding Box2D to the uses
clauses in your project's units!

FlatBox2D
Delphi XE8, C++Builder XE8 and RAD
Studio XE8 are introducing support for
a 2D physics engine based on Box2D.
You can find a new FlatBox2D folder
under Source in the default XE8
installation directory.
It contains some C++ header and source files and
five Object Pascal units:
Box2D.Common.pas
Box2D.Collision.pas
Box2D.Dynamics.pas
Box2D.Rope.pas
Box2DTypes.pas

16 Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE

 INTRODUCTION TO FLATBOX2D FOR DELPHI XE8 (CONTINUATION 1)

Hello World procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);

We commonly explore new var
software or libraries by trying gravity: b2Vec2;
to build a Hello World app, world: b2WorldWrapper;
begin
and FlatBox2D is no different! // Define the gravity vector
On the Box2D home page there gravity := b2Vec2.Create(0.0, -10.0);
is a very nice manual // Construct a world object, which will hold and simulate the rigid bodies
(http://box2d.org/manual.pdf) world := b2WorldWrapper.Create(gravity);
that explains all the important try
concepts of Box2D. Chapter 2 // work with "world"
finally
contains a Hello World world.Destroy;
project with detailed comments. end;
Delphi XE8 contains a end;
1:1 translation of this demo
project into the Object Pascal
language. Rather than discussing the full Box2D The Box2D engine uses MKS units (short for
functionality which you can gather from the Meter-Kilogram-Second) in simulating the
manual, let's have a walk through the behavior of bodies in the physical world.
FlatBox2DObjPasHelloWorld multi-device For example, when we pass a gravity vector to our
project that you can find in the Object Pascal world's Create method we usually mean the
Mobile Samples in the default installation of Earth's gravity, which points downwards and is
Delphi XE8 approximately 10 meters per second squared
(C:\Users\Public\Documents\Embarcader (m/s2).
o\Studio\16.0\Samples\Object Box2D has been optimized to work well with
Pascal\Mobile
shapes moving between 0.1 and 10 m/s. All angles
Samples\Physics\Box2DHello\).
are expressed in radians (not in degrees).
In the project there is only one form with a
Once we have a world object, we can add
button and a memo. All the demo code is in the
bodies and joints to it. Joints connect bodies
OnClick event of the button.
together by removing certain degrees of freedom
of the physical objects that are part of the
The first thing is to make sure that all relevant
simulation.
Box2D units are in the uses clause of the form.
Box2D is a rigid body engine, which means
uses that bodies are not elastic. In other words the
Box2D.Common, Box2D.Collision, Box2D.Dynamics;
distance between any two points of a given body
is always constant. This contrasts wtih the more
The main class in Box2D is the World. World is complex soft body physics that can be used to
a container for all objects that make up the model behavior of, say, clothing, in which
simulation. The Box2D.Dynamics unit defines a distances between arbitrary points of a sock may
b2WorldWrapper record type that change as it slides down a leg of unchanging
encapsulates FHandle: b2WorldHandle that length.
points to the actual b2World instance inside of It is important to realize that Box2D has its
the compiled FlatBox2D library. own memory management optimized for working
The b2WorldWrapper contains a class with large numbers of transient small objects.
function Create that acts very much like a Hence when you want to add bodies and other
typical Delphi constructor and initializes an objects to the world, you do not use constructors,
internal handle to world object, along with a but instead use special factory functions that will
Destroy procedure that acts like a destructor allocate these objects for you. This also means that
that closes the internal handle. you do not have to free these objects. They will be
The Create method accepts a 2D vector destroyed when the whole world is destroyed.
gravity that represents the gravitational force There are three types of bodies in Box2D and they
that affects all bodies in the simulation. All are defined by the b2BodyType enumerated
method calls to b2WorldWrapper should type in Box2D.Dynamics.
happen after the call to Create and before the
call to Destroy as in the code below.

Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE 17

 INTRODUCTION TO FLATBOX2D FOR DELPHI XE8 (CONTINUATION 2)
Dynamic Body (b2_dynamicBody).
It has a mass. Forces have impact on it. It can be
put into linear and angular movement. It may
collide with other dynamic and static bodies. If a
dynamic body has zero mass then it behaves
differently and it always has zero angular velocity.
In a game dynamic bodies are typically moving
objects like vehicles, bullets, balls and everything
else that can move through the world and collide.
Static Body (b2_staticBody).
It does not have a mass. Forces do not influence it.
It cannot be put into a linear or angular
movement. Dynamic bodies collide with it. In a
typical game static bodies are used to define
borders and limits of the game, like walls, ground,
bands in a hockey game and so on.
Kinematic Body (b2_kinematicBody):
Forces do not influence it. It can be put into
linear or angular movement. It may collide with
dynamic bodies, but it does not collide with other
kinematic bodies. Collisions between dynamic and
kinematic bodies do not
change the movement of b2BodyWrapper = record
FHandle: b2BodyHandle;
a kinematic body. //
For example they can be function CreateFixture(def: Pb2FixtureDef): Pb2Fixture; overload;
used in a game as function CreateFixture(shape: b2ShapeHandle; density: Single):
moving platforms that Pb2Fixture; overload; cdecl;
do not react to heavy //
bodies that collide with
them. The movement of
a kinematic body is controlled by vectors of linear
and angular velocity.
In order to create a body we need to call
CreateBody factory method of the world object
and in the parameter we pass an object that
contains the body definition. This is a common
pattern in Box2D. Factory methods typically
accept definition objects that provide a lot of
useful defaults (which means there is less for you
to code).
Let's add the ground body to our Hello World
simulation.
var
groundBodyDef: b2BodyDef;
groundBody: b2BodyWrapper;
//
// Define the ground body
groundBodyDef := b2BodyDef.Create();
groundBodyDef.position.&Set(0.0, -10.0);
// Call the body factory which allocates memory for the ground body
groundBody := world.CreateBody(@groundBodyDef);
18
First we need to create and initialize the ground
body definition. The default type of a body is
static, so we do not need to change it. We only
specify the position of the body to be 10 meters
below zero.
b2BodyDef is a record type. We need the @
operator to pass a pointer to this record, rather than
the record itself. The call to Set is prepended with
the & operator. This is because set is an Object
Pascal keyword and to use it as an identifier it
needs to be escaped.
The Box2D body is an abstract notion. It does
not have a shape, mass or any physical properties
of the material it simulates. The class that has these
properties is called a fixture. Fixtures belong to a
body and are created using the CreateFixture
method of a body.
The CreateFixture method has two variants.
One that takes a fixture definition as an argument
and the other that takes an instance of a shape
class and the density.
cdecl;
There are four different descendants from the
b2Shape class that defines a shape.
Circle shape (b2CircleShape):
Circle shapes have a position and radius. Circles
are solid. You cannot make a hollow circle using
the circle shape.
Polygon shape (b2PolygonShape):
Polygon shapes are solid convex polygons.
A polygon is convex when all line segments
connecting two points in the interior do not cross
any edge of the polygon. Polygons are solid and
never hollow. A polygon must have three or more
vertices. Polygon vertices are stored with a counter
clockwise winding.
Edge shape (b2EdgeShape):
Edge shapes are line segments.
These are provided to assist in
making a free-form static
environment for your game.
A major limitation of edge shapes
is that they can collide with circles
and polygons but not with
themselves.
Edge shapes have no volume,
so edge-edge collision is not
possible.
Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE
 INTRODUCTION TO FLATBOX2D FOR DELPHI XE8 (CONTINUATION 3)

Chain shape (b2ChainShape):

The chain shape provides an efficient way to The last thing is to clean-up definition
connect many edges together to construct your objects. In Box2D these objects can be reused
static game worlds. Chain shapes automatically and passed to subsequent calls to Create
eliminate ghost collisions and provide two-sided methods with adjusted parameters.
collision.
In our Hello World program the next step is to // Cleanup Shape Wrappers
attach a polygon shape to our ground body. We dynamicBox.Destroy;
groundBox.Destroy;
are using the convenience method SetAsBox
that would define our generic polygon to be a
polygon with four vertices that forms a box. As Our Hello World simulation is now initialized
parameters you need to pass the half-width and and ready to start moving.
half-height of the resulting box. The most important method of the world object
var is Step. Step's first parameter is the amount of
groundBox: b2PolygonShapeWrapper;
time we want to advance our simulation
// Define the ground box shape forward.
groundBox := b2PolygonShapeWrapper.Create();
// The extents are the half-widths of the box Box2D simulation is completely neutral from
groundBox.SetAsBox(50.0, 10.0); any rendering and also does not have its own
// Add the ground fixture to the ground body loop. Basically you create a simulated physics
groundBody.CreateFixture(groundBox, 0.0);
world, add objects to it and call its Update
method whenever you want passing the
Now we have one static ground body in our amount of time you want the simulation to
simulation. The next step is to add a dynamic
advance. Box2D has algorithms that prevent the
body, a smaller box that we are going to put on
tunneling effect which happens when
top of our ground. For this we are going to use the
CreateFixture variant that takes a fixture calculating positions of moving bodies in time.
definition as a parameter. If the time increment is too big, you may end
up with a situation in which objects are
var
penetrating each other instead of colliding.
bodyDef: b2BodyDef;
body: b2BodyWrapper; This is why there are two additional
dynamicBox: b2PolygonShapeWrapper; parameters to the Step method that
fixtureDef: b2FixtureDef; define the number of velocity and position
// Define another box shape for our dynamic body iterations that are calculated in each step.
bodyDef := b2BodyDef.Create();
Typical values are 6 for velocity and 2 for
bodyDef.&type := b2_DynamicBody;
bodyDef.position.&Set(0.0, 4.0); position iterations at each step.
body := world.CreateBody(@bodyDef);
In the Hello World demo we display in
dynamicBox := b2PolygonShapeWrapper.Create(); the memo the position and rotation angle of
dynamicBox.SetAsBox(1.0, 1.0);
the moving dynamic box for the first
fixtureDef := b2FixtureDef.Create(); second of simulation. It is typical in games
fixtureDef.shape := dynamicBox; to use 1/60 second frame rate to achieve
smooth animation of moving objects.
// Set the box density to be non-zero, so it will be dynamic
fixtureDef.density := 1.0;
// Override the default friction timeStep := 1/60;
fixtureDef.friction := 1.0; velocityIterations := 6;
// Add the shape to the body positionIterations := 2;
body.CreateFixture(@fixtureDef);
for i := 0 to 60 do
begin
// Instruct the world to perform a single step of simulation.
// It is generally best to keep the time step and iterations fixed
world.Step(timeStep, velocityIterations, positionIterations);

This is what the output of our FlatBox2D pos := body.GetPosition;

Hello World program looks like -
not like Angry Birds at all!
angle := body.GetAngle;
Memo1.Lines.Add(Format
('%4.2f %4.2f %4.2f', [pos^.x, pos^.y, angle]));
end;

Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE 19

INTRODUCTION TO FLATBOX2D FOR DELPHI XE8 (CONTINUATION 4)
These are the very basics. To use FlatBox2D in
applications we need to create the world object
first, add all bodies, shapes and joints to it, build
our own game loop that would call our world's
Step method to advance the simulation and we
would also need to provide our own graphics
rendering.
In the default Delphi XE8 installation there are two
more demo projects that go deeper into using
different bodies, shapes and joints to create more
complex simulations than this Hello World
which has just two boxes.
18
Test Bed
The FlatBox2D Test Bed demo is a very
convenient application that acts a framework for
plugging in different tests into a common
codebase for rendering graphics, providing the
game loop and processing user input. This the
Object Pascal version of the original C++ Test
Bed. You can find FlatBox2D Test Bed in
C:\Users\Public\Documents\Embarcadero\
Studio\16.0\Samples\Object
Pascal\Mobile Samples\Physics\TestBed
\TestBed.dpr
You can learn a lot by playing with one of the six
predefined test cases that experiments with
different aspects of the engine. You can create your
own tests by extending the TTest class and
registering your test with the application's main
form. Out of the box you got the following tests:
Chain
Varying Restitution
Tiles
Add Pair
Apply Force
Basic Slider Crank
Here is how Tiles test looks like in action:
Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE
INTRODUCTION TO FLATBOX2D FOR DELPHI XE8 (CONTINUATION 5 - END)
By pressing space you shoot bullets into your
simulation. That is fun!
Adding physics to apps
The third demo that comes installed with Delphi
XE8 demonstrates how to add physics to a common
FireMonkey multi-device app which uses standard
user interface elements such as buttons, scroll bars,
check boxes and the like. This demo is located
inC:\Users\Public\Documents\Embarcader
o\Studio\16.0\Samples\Object Pascal
\FireMonkey Desktop\Physics
\FormWithBox2D\FMSimplePhysics.dpr
When you open the FMSimplePhysics project it
looks like a regular FireMonkey Controls demo.
After you click on the Drop button all controls gain
physical properties and start falling to the
bottom of the screen!
The physics support has been encapsulated into a
TFmxPhysicsDemo class that is defined as a
member of the main form's class. It has two
methods that are called during the construction of
the main form AddScreenSize and
AddControl. AddScreenSize is called once,
and it used to add four static boxes to the internal
Box2D world, boxes that are at the same position as
the borders of the screen.
Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE
The AddControl method is called for every
control on the form to create a box representing
this control inside the world.
Summary
The FlatBox2D physics engine is a great new
feature included in the new version of
Embarcadero Delphi XE8, C++Builder XE8 and
RAD Studio XE8. Based on a well-known open
source C++ Box2D implementation it adds a
solid foundation for building new generation
apps with realistic graphics user interfaces.
The FlatBox2D demos discussed in this article
cover the basics of using Box2D
(Hello World), playing with
more complex combinations of
bodies, shapes, joints (Test
Bed) and adding physics to a
Delphi XE8 multi-device
application (FMSimplePhysics).
The next step is to build a
complete game with its own
graphics, but this I'm going to
leave to the reader!
Have fun with Delphi and
FlatBox2D programming!
About the Author
Pawe Gowacki is Embarcadero's
European Technical Lead for Developer
Tools. Previously, Pawe spent over 7 years
working as a senior consultant and trainer
for Delphi within Borland Education
Services and CodeGear. As well as working
with Embarcadero customers across the
region, he also represents Embarcadero
internationally as a conference and seminar
speaker. For more information check out
Pawe's technical blog at
http://community.embarcadero.com
21
Fast Report 5 features:
User friendly Report Designer
(Create new reports in few clicks, report wizards, dialog designer, script editor and much more);
Extended Report and script Inheritance;
Many report objects:
Special Bands (Footers, Headers), HTML-formatted Texts, RTF-formatted Texts,
Images, Charts, Linear barcodes, 2D Barcodes, CheckBoxes,
Simple Geometric Objects, Vertical Bands, Cross-tabs;
Export filters :
PDF, RTF, HTML, TXT, JPEG, BMP, TIFF, GIF, EMF, CSV, ODS, ODT,
Excel Binary, Excel XML, Email, DBF;
Built-in script shell that supports 4 languages;
Interactive forms, drill-down (drop) reports, call another report with
detailed information from the preview window with one mouse click;
Acess to many popular database engines:
FireDAC, ADO, BDE, DBX, IBX and FIBPlus,
so providing access to practically all databases,
including Oracle and many third-party libraries;
Acess to any data of your application including classes with using
TfrxUserDataSet component;
Convertors from : Quick Reports, Rave Reports, Report Builder;

New features in Version 5.2:

Support of last Embarcadero RAD Studio XE7 for x32 and x64 windows platforms
Initial support of Lazarus for Fast Report 5 - first beta release witch includes the
report designer and the report preview.
New export filter to SVG format
(SVG is a graphical vector format used in web and now FastReport
allows you to export reports to this format.)
New feature to reset object properties to parents in inherited report
(whole report or single object) - ability to restore object properties of
any object in inherited report to default values introduced in base report.
New multi-selection for data tree and ability to drag whole dataset (create band)
- allow to drag any count of fields from "data tree" or/and include whole data set.
Create your report for few mouse clicks !
Interactive Report Tree with ability to move/select/edit report objects
from report tree window - new enchanted "report objects tree"
gives ability to select move and edit objects more easily.
Transparency and color mask in PDF export (Pictures/HTML-tags/RTF)
- pictures and some objects like RTF may uses alpha mask during export to PDF.
New selection mode in report designer
- new selection modes allow to select all object of the same kind as selected.
Changed preview tabs mechanism.
TfrxPreview.EachReportInTab allows to bind few report components to a
single preview and show each in the separate tab.
Many of bug fixed and improvements.
CLIENTDATASETS AND FDMEMTABLES COMPARED: PART 2
by Cary Jensen
starter
expert
Delphi XE 7
Delphi now has two distinct in-
memory dataset components, the
ClientDataSet, which has been
available in the Client/Server editions since Delphi 3,
and found its way into the Professional edition in Delphi
6, and FDMemTable. The FDMemTable is the newcomer,
making its first appearance in Delphi XE3.
I have long been an advocate for the use of in-memory
datasets, noting that their features can be applied in a
wide range of applications, even those not specifically
associated with traditional databases. And now that
there are two in-memory datasets in Delphi, the most
frequent question that I get asked is this, "Which one
should I use?".
The truthful answer is "It depends". They are not
identical, and each has its strengths and weaknesses.
In the last issue of Blaise Pascal I began taking a look
at the similarities between these two in-memory
datasets, as well as differences in design time
operations, record persistence, and query
configuration. In this issue I will conclude with a look at
cached updates differences, nested datasets, DataSnap
operations, and miscellaneous differences.
Cached Updates
This section describes some of the differences
between cached updates in ClientDataSets and
FDMemTables.
FDMEMTABLE NOT REQUIRED FOR CACHED
UPDATES
One of the more compelling reasons to use a
ClientDataSet is to enable cached updates on a
TDataSet. This is not true, however, when it comes
to users of Delphi's FireDAC data access
framework. The reason why is that FireDAC
datasets support cache updates directly (albeit
through an encapsulated FDMemTable).
As a result, when you want cached updates you
can simply employ that feature as exposed by the
FireDAC dataset, such as an FDQuery.
Before continuing, however, I want to point out
that cached updates in FDMemTables works
differently than in other FireDAC datasets,
specifically with respect to how the ApplyUpdates
method works. I will address these difference
when I discuss ApplyUpdates.
Nonetheless, while both ClientDataSets and
FDMemTables support cached updates operations,
a number of the properties and methods associated
with cached updates work differently. Examples of
properties and methods that differ in function
between ClientDataSets and FDMemTables
24
include CachedUpdates, StatusFilter
(and its related property,
FilterChanges), and ApplyUpdates.
DEFAULT CACHED UPDATES STATE
Let's start this comparison by looking at the
default cached updates state of ClientDataSets. A
ClientDataSet is in a cached updates mode by
default. In other words, LogChanges is True for a
ClientDataSet when it is created. By comparison,
FDMemTable CachedUpdates is False by default.
CACHED UPDATES AND UPDATEMODE
ClientDataSets and FDMemTables use different
update mode default settings, a value that affects
how updates are applied. I spent an entire article
in a recent issue of Blaise Pascal Magazine
discussing this issue, but permit me to recap that
discussion here.
ClientDataSets, by way of the
DataSetProvider.UpdateMode property, defaults
to upWhereAll. This setting attempts to apply an
update based on key fields and all non-BLOB
(Binary Large OBject) fields. If some other user
has posted a change to a record since the in-
memory dataset was loaded, a change to that
same record cannot be applied from cache to the
underlying database. In this situation, the first
user to write their changes wins.
FireDAC DataSets, including FDMemTable, use
their UpdateOptions.UpdateMode property to
control this process, and this property defaults to
upWhereKey. When UpdateMode is set to
upWhereKey, only the key fields are used to
update data, which has the effect of replacing
existing records with whatever the current user is
writing. In other words, the last user to write to a
particular record (as identified by the table's key
fields) will replace any changes previously posted
by another user. To put it another way, the last
user to write wins.
Obviously, these are differences in default
settings, and you can easily set an FDMemTable's
UpdateOptions.UpdateMode property to
upWhereAll. Nonetheless, you need to be aware
that ClientDataSets and FDMemTables have
different defaults, since the difference between
these two settings are significant.
APPLYING UPDATES
Applying cached updates is another area where
ClientDataSets and FDMemTables differ
significantly.
Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE
CLIENTDATASETS AND FDMEMTABLES COMPARED: PART 2 (CONTINUATION 1)
Calling ApplyUpdates on a ClientDataSet clears
each applied record from the cache (assuming that
MaxErrors is not exceeded). If all updates are
successfully applied, the change cache will be
empty when ApplyUpdates returns. If errors are
encountered, and MaxErrors is not exceeded, the
applied records are cleared from the cache, with
the records that produced errors remaining.
By comparison, following a call to ApplyUpdates
on an FDMemTable, the cache is cleared
unconditionally. In other words, if AMaxErrors
(the name of the parameter passed to
ApplyUpdates in FireDAC is different), all records
are removed from the cache, including the errors.
Yes, ApplyUpdates will return a non-zero value if
errors are encountered, but those errant records
are removed from cache. Apparently, if you want
to process those errors, you must do so by catching
them using the OnReconcileError event handler.
I mentioned earlier that FireDAC's other datasets,
such as FDQuery, handle ApplyUpdates
differently, both from ClientDataSets and
FDMemTables. With an FDQuery, a call to
ApplyUpdates doesn't clear the cache at all, even if
all changes can be applied. If ApplyUpdates
returns 0, indicating that all updates are applied,
you must then call CommitUpdates to flush the
cache of all records. If ApplyUpdates returns a
positive value, indicating that one or more records
could not be applied, you have to manually handle
those records before flushing the cache.
Fortunately, there are easy ways to identify
records in cache that could not be applied.
Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE
FireDAC datasets flag records in the cache by
exposing a property named RowError. When the
current record of the dataset is one whose cached
value raised an error, this property holds the
exception raised during the call to ApplyUpdates,
otherwise the property is nil.
FireDAC datasets also support a filter flag (used
with the FilterRecord and StatusFilter properties)
named rtHasErrors. You can use this flag to filter
the FDMemTable records on those for which an
error was raised during ApplyUpdates.
ClientDataSets do not support the RowError
property and do not support the rtHasErrors flag.
However, these values are only useful if the cache is
intact, and from my tests, calling apply updates to
an FDMemTable always clears the cache.
This means that if you are going to try to handle
errors in the call to ApplyUpdates, you must do so
from the OnReconcileError event handler of the
FDMemTable.
Regardless, following a call to ApplyUpdates on a
FireDAC dataset, you must deal with the errors, on
a record by record bases, before flushing the cache.
In my opinion, the ClientDataSet way of doing this
is much easier to deal with.
Applying Updates to
Master/Detail Relationships
A ClientDataSet can apply updates to its data, via
a DataSetProvider, through a single call to
ApplyUpdates. If the ClientDatasSet includes one
or more nested datasets whose data has changed,
the call to ApplyUpdates on the ClientDataSet
applies changes to the nested dataset data as well.
Figure 1. The CentralizedCachedUpdates project
25
CLIENTDATASETS AND FDMEMTABLES COMPARED: PART 2 (CONTINUATION 2)
This is the mechanism used by ClientDataSets to
apply updates to master/detail relationships.
FireDAC uses another method for caching updates
to master/detail relationships, something that
FireDAC refers to as centralized cached updates.
With centralized cached updates, two or more
FireDAC datasets, related in a master/detail
relationship, point to a single FDSchemaAdapter.
While the FireDAC datasets are placed in a cached
update mode manually, the FDSchemaAdapter is
used to apply the updates to all of the associated
FireDAC datasets.
The use of the centralized model of cached updates
is demonstrated in the project named
CentralizedCachedUpdates. The main form of this
application is shown in Figure 1, on page23.
Unfortunately, calling ApplyUpdates on an
FDSchemaAdapter works the same way as
applying updates on an FDMemTable. The cache is
cleared unconditionally. If you want to handle any
errors, you must do so from the
FDSchemaAdapter's OnReconcileRow event
handler.
ENTERING AND EXITING CACHED UPDATES
Another cached update difference between
ClientDataSets and FDMemTables is related to
entering and exiting the cached updates state.
If a ClientDataSet has cached changes, you can set
the LogChanges property to false, thereby
terminating the cached updates state and aborting
all changes. With an FDMemTable, you cannot set
CachedUpdates to false when there are records in
cache.
Figure 2. A ClientDataSet loads linked detail tables from a DataSetProvider into nested dataset fields
26
You must either apply the updates (using
ApplyUpdates, and in the case of non-
FDMemTable FireDAC datasets, CommitUpdates)
or cancel them (using either CancelUpdates or
CommitUpdates) before you can exit the cached
updates mode.
STATUSFILTER DEFAULT VALUE
Another difference is that the
ClientDataSet.StatusFilter property and the
FDMemTable.FilterRecords property (the
FDMemTable equivalent of
ClientDataSet.StatusFilter) operate differently.
The default value for StatusFilter in a
ClientDataSet is an empty set of TUpdateStatus
flags. For an FDMemTable, it is a set that includes
usUnmodified, usModified, and usInserted.
Granted, the way that FDMemTable does this is
more intuitive, but it is a difference nonetheless.
Dynamic Nested DataSets
When a ClientDataSet points to a master table of a
dynamic master-detail relationship (one defined
by MasterSource and MasterFields, or one defined
by a detail query linked to a master table by way
of query parameters), the ClientDataSet will load
the detail table as a nested dataset (loading is
actually performed by the DataSetProvider to
which the ClientDataSet points).
An example of a nested dataset can be seen in
Figure 2. The top DBGrid holds the values
returned from a DataSetProvider to a
ClientDataSet, where the DataSetProvider pointed
to the master query of a dynamic master/detail
relationship. The detail dataset contains the orders
for the selected customer.
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CLIENTDATASETS AND FDMEMTABLES COMPARED: PART 2 (CONTINUATION 3)
Note the OrdersQuery field in the top grid. This is
the nested dataset. When the ellipsis is clicked on
the OrdersQuery field, the nested data is display
in a dynamically created grid. Also note that the
lower DBGrid displays these orders as well, which
was accomplished by pointing another
ClientDataSet to the dataset field
(OrdersQuery).While FDMemTables support the
creation of nested datasets, these can only be the
result of creating the FDMemTable based on
defined FieldDefs or TFields of the type
DataSetField. An FDMemTable that loads its data
from the master table of a dynamic master-detail
relationship does not obtain a nested dataset field
representing the detail table.
Similarly, while FDMemTable supports nested
datasets, these cannot be used to apply cached
updates in the same manner as ClientDataSets.
ClientDataSets can apply updates to master-detail
relationships using nested datasets, FDMemTable
cannot.
Nested datasets play an important role in the
ClientDataSet's ability to support cached updates
with master-detail relationships. As I've
mentioned already, FireDAC datasets support
cached updates directly, meaning that
FDMemTables are not necessary is all the only
feature you need from the FDMemTable is cached
updates. For FireDAC datasets that need to cache
updates on master-detail relationships, the
datasets can employ an FDSchemaAdapter.
DataSnap
ClientDataSets were designed for MIDAS, which
was released with Delphi 3. While the name has
subsequently changed to DataSnap, the essential
model is the same. A middle-tier server (the
DataSnap server) retrieves data from a
Figure 3. The server methods module of a traditional DataSnap server
Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE
data source, typically a database, and passes it to
a client application. If the client application
makes changes to that data, a delta is passed
from the ClientDataSet on the client to a
DataSetProvider on the server, which in turn
applies those changes to the underlying database.
The key to making this work, from a
ClientDataSet perspective, is embodied in the
ClientDataSet/DataSetProvider interaction. The
DataSetProvider resides on the DataSnap server,
and the ClientDataSet interacts with it by way of
several client-side components. In the latest
incarnation of DataSnap, those components are a
dbExpress SQLConnection (employing its
DataSnap driver), and a DSProviderConnection.
There are three aspects of ClientDataSets that
make DataSnap work smoothly. First, opening a
ClientDataSet that points to a DataSetProvider on
a DataSnap server retrieves data, and calling
ApplyUpdates sends the change cache back to
the DataSetProvider for resolution. Second, the
use of nested datasets permits changes made to
related data (in a master/detail sense) to be
updated with a single call to ApplyUpdates.
Finally, the Params and CommandText
properties of the ClientDataSet permit the
ClientDataSet to effortlessly pass parameter
values, and even entire queries, to the
DataSetProvider, permitting a great deal of
flexibility from the client-side of the DataSnap
equation.
The use of ClientDataSets in a DataSnap
client/server interaction is demonstrated in a set
of projects located in the DataSnap directory.
Figure 3 shows how the server methods unit
looks in the designer.
27
 CLIENTDATASETS AND FDMEMTABLES COMPARED: PART 2 (CONTINUATION 4)

Here is the underlying class definition. server can use TFDJSONDeltasApplyUpdates

type class to resolve the changes in the DataSnap
TServerMethods1 = class(TDSServerModule) client's change cache to the underlying database.
FDConnection1: TFDConnection;
CustomersQuery: TFDQuery;
Figure 4 - at the bottom - shows the
CustomersQueryA: TFDQuery; FDMemTable version of a DataSnap server that is
CustomerProvider: TDataSetProvider; similar to the ClientDataSet one
OrdersQueryA: TFDQuery; shown earlier. While there is not much
CustomersSourceA: TDataSource;
complexity in the number of components, the
CustomersOrdersProvider: TDataSetProvider;
private underlying class structure is dramatically
{ Private declarations } different, in order to expose sufficient custom
public methods to transfer the same data as provided
{ Public declarations } for using the ClientDataSet /DataSetProvider
function EchoString(Value: string): string;
function ReverseString(Value: string): string;
model. This can be seen in the following class
end; declaration. FireDACJSONReflect does not
specifically address master/detail relationships,
nor does it provide an infrastructure for passing
Until recently, FDMemTables were not well suited query parameters or SQL statements from the
for the DataSnap environment. Conveying data client to the server.
from the DataSnap server type
to an FDMemTable on the TServerMethods1 = class(TDSServerModule)
DataSnap client had to be CustomerQuery: TFDQuery;
performed manually. FDConnection1: TFDConnection;
FDStanStorageBinLink1: TFDStanStorageBinLink;
The same thing can be FDStanStorageJSONLink1: TFDStanStorageJSONLink;
said regarding the OrdersQuery: TFDQuery;
FDMemTable delta CustomerOrdersQuery: TFDQuery;
(the change cache). private
{ Private declarations }
Beginning with Update 2 public
{ Public declarations }
of Delphi XE5, the function EchoString(Value: string): string;
introduction of the function ReverseString(Value: string): string;
FireDACJSONReflect unit function GetCustomerData: TFDJSONDataSets;
has partially addressed function GetCustomersOrders: TFDJSONDataSets;
both of these issues. function GetOrdersForCustomer(CustNo: Double): TFDJSONDataSets;
procedure ApplyCustomerUpdates(const ADeltaList: TFDJSONDeltas);
Specifically, you can now procedure ApplyCustomersOrdersUpdates(const ADeltaList: TFDJSONDeltas);
use the TFDJSONDataSets end;
class to package one or
more FireDAC datasets
nto a specialized class, which in turn can be Master/detail relationships must be configured
streamed from the DataSnap server to the manually on the DataSnap client (via the
DataSnap client through custom methods that you MasterSource and MasterFields properties of the
add to the server methods unit of the DataSnap client-side FDMemTables, or MasterSource on the
server. Likewise, the TFDJSONDeltas class can be detail table combined with a parameterized query
used to package the deltas of one or more on the detail table). And, if you want to convey
FDMemTables for return to the DataSnap server, parameters or even entire queries from the client
again through custom to the server, you will have to do this through
passed to custom server-side
methods. Yet another feature,
introduced in Delphi XE7,
appears to provide an
alternative for FireDAC, and it
can handle master/detail
relationships. In XE7 the
FDSchemaAdapter received
Figure 4 SaveToFile,
methods that you add to the DataSnap server's
server methods unit. From there, the DataSnap

28 Issue Nr 1 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE

CLIENTDATASETS AND FDMEMTABLES COMPARED: PART 2 (CONTINUATION 5)

SaveToStream, LoadFromFile, and Summary

LoadFromStream methods. These can be used to
persist and restore the data managed by an
FDSchemaAdapter, whether it is connected to a
single FDMemTable (or FDQuery), or several,
through master/detail relationships.
Both ClientDataSets and FDMemTables are in-
memory datasets that share a large number of
features. At the same time, there are significant
differences. Which should you use in your
applications?

Using the FDSchemaAdapter, it is possible to The answer is pretty simple. If an FDMemTable

transfer data from one or more FDMemTables on
the DataSnap server, using a stream, to the
DataSnap client, and back. There are only two
problems with this. First, the file or stream created
by the FDSchemaAdapter contains every record in
the underlying FDMemTable or FDMemTables,
and, when there are changes in the change cache,
additional data as well. That's a lot of data to push
back and forth. By comparison, when you call
ApplyUpdates on a ClientDataSet in a DataSnap
client, only the change cache is returned to the
server. Unless you are working with just a few
records, the amount of data being transferred
back to the DataSnap server using an
FDSchemaAdapter can be significant.
supports the features you need, use it instead of
a ClientDataSet. FDMemTables are the future of
in-memory datasets in Delphi. All innovations
involving in-memory datasets will appear in
FireDAC as Delphi continues to evolve.
ClientDataSets, by comparison, are legacy
components, based on a C library that is only
modified if very serious bugs are discovered. You
will see no new features being added to
ClientDataSets by Embarcadero in the future.
There are, however, many features not supported
by FDMemTables, or for which an FDMemTable
would otherwise require a more burdensome
solution. Clearly, cached updates is one of those
areas. In those cases, use, or continue to use, a
ClientDataSet.

About the Author

Bottom line is this. You can implement DataSnap
Cary Jensen is Chief Technology Officer of
clients and servers using FireDAC and Jensen Data Systems. Since 1988 he has built
FDMemTables, but it is going to take more work and deployed database applications in a wide
than the same application built using range of industries, and is available for
ClientDataSets and DataSetProviders. At least this development, consulting, and training. Cary is
statement is true as of the time of this writing. an Embarcadero MVP, a best selling author of
I anticipate that at some time in the future more than 20 books on software development,
and holds a Ph.D. in Engineering Psychology,
FDMemTables will gain additional features which
specializing in human-computer interaction. He
will make them more suitable for the DataSnap is also co-presenter with Ray Konopka on this
server/DataSnap client interaction. year's Delphi Developer Days 2015 tour. Visit
http://www.DelphiDeveloperDays.com to learn
Miscellaneous more.
There are additional differences, and they all
represent advantages of FDMemTables over
ClientDataSets. These are:
ClientDataSets requires MidaLib (a Delphi unit)
or midas.dll (a windows dynamic link library).
FDMemTable is written entirely in Object
Pascal, and does not require any additional
libraries.
For in-memory operations, such as searches
and filtering, FDMemTable is generally faster
than ClientDataSets.
ClientDataSets exhibit a significant
performance decline when holding a large
amount of data, somewhere in the 200,000
record range. FDMemTables do not exhibit this
same loss in performance.
FDMemTable supports copying multiple result
sets from FireDAC datasets. When loading a
ClientDataSet via a DataSetProvider, you can
load only from a single data set.

Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE 29

 Group discounts are available

30 Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE

START WITH FUNCTION TESTING maXbox
maXbox Starter 36 By Max Kleiner
Measure Correctness and Stability
Today we step through the realm of testing and
bug-finding and his visual representation in
metrics and audits.

The traditional approach to quality control and

testing has been to apply it after the development
process completes. This approach is very limited
as uncovering defects or errors at a late stage can
produce long delays with high costs while the bugs
are corrected, or can result in the publishing of a
low-quality software product.

Lets start with a first function and how to improve and debugging tool that many programmers overlook,
test it: primarily because of a general lack of discussion on
the subject.
function CountPos(const subtxt: string; Text: string): Integer;
begin
if (Length(subtxt)= 0) or (Length(Text)= 0) or
(Pos(subtxt,Text)= 0) then
result:= 0 OutputDebugString(inttoStr(CountPos('max',TESTTEXT))+
else 'CountPos runs..');
result:= (Length(Text)-
Length(StringReplace(Text,subtxt,'',
[rfReplaceAll]))) div Length(subtxt);
end;

This function counts all sub-strings in a text or That's all you have to do. Because Delphi, Lazarus
string. The point is that the function uses another or Free Pascal is installed as the system debugger,
functions like Pos() and StringReplace(). any strings sent using OutputDebugString will
Do we have to test it also? show up in the Event Log. You can place calls to
No, but we need a reference value: OutputDebugString anywhere you want in your
PrintF('CountPos: %d',[CountPos('max','this is max of maXbox a max numbermax')]) code.
To view the value
The result is 3, so we better extract our test-string of a variable, you must format a string and send
in a constant: that string to OutputDebugString, for example:
Const TESTTEXT = 'this is max of maXbox a max numbermax'; procedure GetOutputDebugString;
PrintF('CountPos: %d',[CountPos('max',TESTTEXT)]) var
x : Integer; S : string;
begin
And with Assert we do automate that reference { Some code here...}
value (more on page 34): x:= CountPos('max',TESTTEXT);
with procedure Assert(expr: Boolean; const S:= Format('X := %d', [X]);
OutputDebugString(PChar(S));
msg: string); you set an expression value which
writeln(S)
you expect to be true: end;
Assert(CountPos('max',TESTTEXT)=3, 'count pos assert') // OutputDebugString(PChar(Format('[%s][%s]
%s',[aCaption, GetFormatDT(StartDT), aText])));

Find the position and count of all strings in

another is the function to test but is the function
case sensitive or not?
Sometimes it is helpful to track your program's
execution as your program runs. Or maybe you
want to see a variable's value without stopping
program execution at a breakpoint to test.
The OutputDebugString() function enables you to
do exactly that. This function is a convenient
Also the Event Viewer is a Microsoft Management
Console (MMC) snap-in that enables you to
browse and manage event logs. It is an
indispensable tool for monitoring the health of
systems and troubleshooting issues when they
arise. Look at the last entry in the Event Log
shown in the next picture. That entry was
generated using the code on the next page:

Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE

maXbox 31
 START WITH FUNCTION TESTING (CONTINUATION 1) maXbox
WriteToOSEventLog('mX3','maXbox','Details3',TESTTEXT);

When you use Event Viewer to troubleshoot or Analytic or test events are published in high
track a problem, you need to locate events related volume. They describe program operation and
to the problem, regardless of which event log they indicate problems that can't be handled by user
appear in. Event Viewer enables you to filter for tasks or intervention.
specific events across multiple logs as of maXbox.
We need values in
WriteToOSEventLog(const logName, logCaption, logDetails: String; const logRawData: Str);

a logName, logCaption, logDetails and some RawData:

WriteToOSEventLog('mX3','maXbox','ID45:detail3',TESTTEXT);

The Application log (see picture) contains events

logged by applications or programs. For example,
a database program might record a file error in the
application log. You as a developer decide which
events to log. To log a sound in a multimedia app
for e.g. you have to set a song first:
playMP3(mp3path);
closeMP3;
DebugOutputString('closeMP3: '+ mp3path);

In a shortlink
%windir%\system32\eventvwr.msc /s
you start the eventlog:

32
maXbox Issue Nr 1 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE
 START WITH FUNCTION TESTING (CONTINUATION 2)
Lets go back to our function to test and build
a test function too.
function CountPos(const subtxt: string; Text: string): Integer;
begin
if (Length(subtxt)= 0) or (Length(Text)= 0) or (Pos(subtxt,Text)= 0)
then result:= 0
else result:= (Length(Text)- Length(StringReplace(Text,subtxt,'',
[rfReplaceAll]))) div Length(subtxt);
end;
Such a small function like above contains another
3 functions (yellow) and before testing we should
also check the understanding and the design of
the function. For example StringReplace()
which replace one or more substrings found
within a string does have more parameters to test
like the [rfReplaceAll].On the other side we
can trust in a stable function of the runtime library and halt a program rather than allow execution to
otherwise we loose time not to mention the
frustration caused by a bug that is difficult to find.
I asked a few lines above if the function to test
is case-sensitive or not, do you remember? Yes it is
and we do have to consider that in our test-string
and test-function with Uppercase too.
function CountPosTest: boolean;
begin
result:= false;
if CountPos(Uppercase('max'),Uppercase(TESTTEXT))= 4
then result:= true;
end;
Each time we test (or change) our function we call
the test-function with a test-string and check the
reference value which must be 4. Normally you
test a function by creating a test application or unit
and if something goes wrong or crashes you will
run the test application under the debugger and
watching the values.
A debugger helps you find bugs or errors in
your program at runtime. But the debugging
process isn't just for finding and fixing bugs - it's a
development and test tool as well. Another great
way to test a function is to compare the result with
a already well known standard function, for
example CountStr():
Function CountStr(const ASearchFor, ASearchIn: string): Integer;
maXbox
Or you will look at the web and ask to a search
machine: How do I find and count the total
amount of times that a
particular word
appears?
Often, as programmers
gain experience in
building applications,
they develop a sixth sense
for locating the cause of in-correctness or access
violations.
With asserts you can support that feeling what
could crash. An assert function is used to make
sure that certain conditions which are assumed to
be true are never violated. Assert provides an
opportunity to intercept an unexpected condition
continue under unanticipated conditions.
If you encounter problems using any feature of
Event Viewer, first ensure that the Windows Event
Log service is running. If you are working
with event subscriptions, ensure that the Windows
Event Collector service is running.
With this call in maXbox you can run the
event log from the script:
ExecuteCommand('cmd','/c %windir%\
system32\eventvwr.msc /s ')
Next we go to the topic of Unit Testing but
not to generate units (this is another story)
but consuming as a test-function or protocol e.g. in
maXbox I do have some unit tests to check
conditions before running a script!:
// test routines with assert or assert2 builds
SelftestPEM;
SelfTestCFundamentUtils;
SelfTestCFileUtils;
SelfTestCDateTime;
SelfTestCTimer;
SelfTestCRandom;
Writeln(' 6 Units Tested with success ')
ShowMessageBig(' 6 Units Tests with
success!');

or check with a subroutine which both of them A unit is the smallest testable part of software. It
uses: Function Unit SysUtils usually has one or a few inputs and usually a
StringReplace: Replace one or more single output. In procedural programming a unit
substrings found within a string may be an individual program, function, routine,
function CountStr(const ASearchFor, ASearchIn: string): Integer; procedure, etc. In object-oriented
var Start: Integer; programming, the smallest unit is
begin a method, which may belong to a
Result:= 0;
base/ super class, abstract class or
Start:= Pos(ASearchFor, ASearchIn);
while Start > 0 do begin derived/ child class.
Inc(Result);
Start:= PosEx(ASearchFor, ASearchIn, Start+ 1);
end;
end;

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maXbox 33
 START WITH FUNCTION TESTING (CONTINUATION 3) maXbox
Lets say you have a program comprising of two
units and the only test you perform is system
testing between Win and Linux:

SelfTestCFileUtils;
SelfTestCDateTime; //as an extract in test-cases:

Assert2(FilePath ('C', '..\X\Y', 'A\B', '\') =

A\X\Y\C', 'FilePath');
Assert2(PathCanonical
('\A\B\..\C\D\..\..\..\..\', '\') = '\',
'PathCanonical');
Assert2(UnixPathToWinPath
('/c/d.f') = '\c\d.f', 'UnixPathToWinPath');
Assert2(WinPathToUnixPath
('\c\d.f') = '/c/d.f', 'WinPathToUnixPath');
A:= EncodeDateTime(2001, 09, 02, 12, 11, 10, 0);
Assert2(Month(A) = 9, 'EncodeDateTime');
S:= GMTTimeToRFC1123TimeA(A, True);
Assert2(S = '12:11:10 GMT','GMT');
S:= GMTDateTimeToRFC1123DateTimeA(A, True);
Assert2(
S = 'Sun, 02 Sep 2001 12:11:10 GMT',
'GMTDateTimeToRFC1123DateTime');
Assert2(TickDeltaW
($FFFFFFF6, 0) = 10,'TrickDelta');
Assert2(
CPUClockFrequency > 0,'RTC Prepare');
Assert2(Length(RandomPassword
(0, 0, True, True, True)) = 0,'random passwd');
Assert2(Length (
RandomPassword(1, 1, True, True, True)) =
1,'random passwd');
CompareDateTime(DateOf(Now),DateOf(Now)+1)

For me the important thing is to isolate the

development environ-ment from the test
environment and make sure you are using a You see the screen with those test scripts notion
version control system to keep track of your test and some calls with external dependencies.
scripts and constants.
One of a question often arises is the following:
V1.2.1 SelftestPEM; Why do I continue getting error messages even
V1.7.0 SelfTestCFundamentUtils; after I have written an exception handler?
V1.2.0 SelfTestCFileUtils;
V1.1.1 SelfTestCDateTime;
V1.2.5 SelfTestCTimer; Answer: In its default settings, the Delphi IDE
V0.9.2 SelfTestCRandom; notifies you whenever an exception occurs in your
program.
Whats important to realize is that at that point,
none of your programs exception-handling code
has run yet. Its all Delphi itself; its special status
as a debugger allows it to get first notification of
any exception in your program, even before your
program knows about it.

Simply put, debugging when using exception

handling can be a bit of a pain. Each runtime an
exception is raised, the debugger pauses program
execution at the except block just as if a breakpoint
were set on that line.

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maXbox Issue Nr 1 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE
START WITH FUNCTION TESTING (CONTINUATION 4) maXbox

If the except block is in your code, the execution

maXbox
point is displayed as it would be if you had
stopped at a breakpoint.
You can or must restart the program again by
clicking the Run button, or you can step through
your code.

You might not be able to continue execution of

your program after an exception is raised.
Whether you can continue debugging depends on
what went wrong in your program.

If an exception passes through the tryblocks in the

application code, the application automatically
calls the HandleException method. Unless the
exception object is EAbort, HandleException calls
the OnException handler, if one exists. Otherwise,
it calls ShowException to display a message box
indicating an error occurred.

Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE

maXbox 35
START WITH FUNCTION TESTING (CONTINUATION 5)
Code Review Integration
Code-coverage use.
So we have seen testing goes with automation to
test. There are tools which automate your tests
driven by software metrics.
With these tools at hand, quality managers,
developers and technical architects have a
complete workbench to rate application quality,
perform quantitative analysis and define
corrective action. Those tools measure the amount
of test-cases and the metric is called code-
coverage.
The cost of fixing a defect detected during unit
testing or code metrics is lesser in comparison
to that of defects detected at higher levels. Unit
Testing is the first level of testing and is
performed and logged prior to Integration
Testing.
But most of the time we forget to check our code
twice. To avoid this problem, metric products
provide support for the so called Continuous
Inspection paradigm by enabling real-time
notifications when code quality defects are
introduced in an application. This transparency
ensures that internal quality assurance is an
integral part of the software development life-
cycle, rather than an afterthought.
better office benelux | asterlaan 6 5582EH waalre | 040 222 26 43 gtan@better-office.com
maXbox
These features enable full support of a Continuous
Inspection process and produce three immediate
benefits:
They encourage developer adoption by
enabling developers to quickly identify code
improvements and quick wins.
They improve quality of code produced by
increasing developer knowledge and
understanding of code quality issues.
They reduce maintenance cost through early
identification of quality issues.
Every step in your development work-flow that
can be automated should be. You need this
automation to be able to focus all your time on
building your product and providing value to your
customers. Testing is one of those steps where
automation is key.
Test the script with F9 / F2 or press Compile. So
far now well open the test-function example:
587_one_function_assert.txt
http://www.softwareschule.ch/examples
/587_one_function_assert.txt
Hope you did already work with the Starter 24 on
Clean Code topics:
https://bitbucket.org/max_kleiner/max
box3/wiki/maXbox%20Tutorials
START WITH FUNCTION TESTING (CONTINUATION 6 - END) maXbox
Conclusion so you exit the procedure after handling the
Stepping through code is one of the most basic exception.
debugging and testing operations, yet it still needs If the brain were so simple we could understand
to be mentioned here. Sometimes you fail to see the it, we would be so simple we couldn't.
Lyall Watson
forest for the trees. (Just as sometimes authors of
programming books fail to include the obvious!) Feedback: max@kleiner.com
Reviewing the basics from time to time can reveal Literature: Kleiner et al., Patterns konkret, 2003,
something you were not previously aware of. Software & Support
http://www.softwareschule.ch/download/
Test functions return a boolean that you can test for codesign_2015.pdf
conditional parts of the functionality (correctness). http://softwaretestingfundamentals.com/
unit-testing/
It is important to understand that when you catch http://www.sonarsource.com/products/features/
an exception, code execution continues after continuous-inspection/
executing the except block. One of the advantages https://www.academia.edu/5129685/
Software_Quality_with_SONAR
to catching exceptions is that you can recover from https://github.com/maxkleiner/maXbox3/releases
the exception and continue program execution.
Notice the Exit statement in a code snippet. In this
case, you don't want to continue code execution
following the exception,
Appendix:
Assert and WriteToOSEventLog Study
PROCEDURE Assert(Cond: boolean; const Msg: string);
var progSeg, progOfs: word;
begin
asm
mov ax, [bp+04]
mov es, ax
mov ax, word ptr es:0
mov progSeg, ax
mov ax, [bp+02]
mov progOfs, ax
end;

if (Cond = FALSE) then begin

mmDebug.Lines.Add(Msg
+ ' at location '
+ IntToHex(progSeg, 4) +':' +IntToHex(progOfs, 4) );
ShowModal;
end;
end;

// WriteToOSEventLog

procedure WriteToOSEventLog(const logName, logCaption,

logDetails : UnicodeString;
const logRawData : String = '');
var eventSource : THandle; detailsPtr : array [0..1] of PWideChar;
begin
if logName<>'' then
eventSource := RegisterEventSourceW(nil, PWideChar(logName))
else eventSource := RegisterEventSourceW(nil,
PWideChar(ChangeFileExt(ExtractFileName(ParamStr(0)), '')));
if eventSource>0 then begin
try
detailsPtr[0]:=PWideChar(logCaption);
detailsPtr[1]:=PWideChar(logDetails);
ReportEventW(eventSource, EVENTLOG_INFORMATION_TYPE, 0, 0, nil,
2, Length(logRawData), @detailsPtr, Pointer(logRawData));
finally
DeregisterEventSource(eventSource);
end;
end;
end;

Check the script! Script Example: maxbox3\examples\318_excel_export3

Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE

maXbox 37
SERVICE ARTICLE
In the Adobe PDF file it is possible to view 2 pages side by side:
go to: File Edit g Preferences g Page Layout:
To view some images completely you need to see the two pages side by side.
You can adjust this.
The modern screens allow side-by-side-view.
BLAISE 2015
 WORKING WITH BEACONS IN DELPHI XE8
By Jeremy North
With the release of Delphi XE8 one of the new
features added to the RTL is support for
Bluetooth beacons. This includes support for
both iBeacon and AltBeacon specifications.
What are Beacons?
Beacons are low energy Bluetooth devices that
transmit data. The data transmitted enables
smart devices to be informed when a beacon is
within range. Every beacon transmits data to a
standard as well as being able to transmit
manufacturer specific data as well. Each
beacon transmits the following information in
Advertising Mode:
Proximity UUID Unique identifying GUID
Major Integer value used to help identify a specific Beacon
Minor Integer value used to help identify a specific Beacon
TxPower Indicates the signal strength 1 metre from the device
Platform Support
Beacons are supported using OS X, iOS and
Android in Delphi XE8. There is no support for
Windows platforms at this time.
My Beacon of choice
The beacons I have used are the Estimote
(http://www.estimote.com/) beacons.
There is no specific reason behind using Estimote,
they just happened to be the first I looked into
and the development kit (which includes 3 beacons)
costs $99 USD. They took about a week to ship to
Australia, which wasn't bad.
Identifying a Beacon
The UUID, Major and Minor version values are
used to identify a beacon. With Estimote (at least)
it is not possible to setup a second beacon with
the same values.
All Estimote beacons are delivered with the same
UUID value and random Major and Minor
values. Before deploying beacons in the field, you
should at least change the UUID value from the
default. These three values can be thought to be
hierarchical in nature and allow you some
flexibility to make it easier to identify particular
beacons.
Identification is very important when interacting
with Beacons. With your app you can specify to
scan for beacons with a UUID value, a UUID and
Major version combination or for a specific
beacon by specifying all three (UUID, Major and
Minor).
40
There is an attempt to have a global database of
proximity UUID allocated to a company to help
prevent collisions
- https://openuuid.lime-company.eu/.
Distance and Proximity Zones
A common issue developer's face when interacting
with beacons is the sometime lack of accuracy in
calculating the distance between the beacon and
the app interacting with it. This can mainly be
attributed to radio signal interference, as a beacon
is just a small radio transmitting a signal.
When using the iBeacon (Standard) mode, the
distance is calculated based on the iOS Core
Location framework. For
Alternate beacons, the
distance is calculated based
on a formula provided in an
IEEE Xplore library paper.
The paper title and URL is located in the
RssiToDistance method of the System.Bluetooth
unit. Since the accuracy of distance calculations can
be inconsistent an event (OnCalcDistance) is
provided to allow for a custom distance
calculation.
Proximity zones indicate the distance from a
beacon you are. The values for Proximity (in the
Embarcadero implementation) are Immediate,
Near, Far and Away. The following table gives the
distance range for each Proximity value.
Proximity Value Distance (metres)
Immediate less than 0.5
Near 0.5 to 3
Far 3 to 30
Away 30+
The proximity is based upon the RSSI (received
signal strength indication) and signal power values
received from the Beacon. Fluctuation will occur in
the calculated distance even if neither the smart
device nor Beacon is moving. This could be caused
by other radio signals in the environment or even
be caused by the material the building is
constructed with.
The values above are taken from the beacon
implementation source code from Embarcadero.
Manufacturers may assign different ranges to the
zones; for example, Estimote provides the
following ranges with their SDK.
Issue Nr 1 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE
WORKING WITH BEACONS IN DELPHI XE8 (CONTINUATION 1)

Using the TBeacon Component

There has been a lot of code written behind the
scenes to make applications that require beacon
support very simple. For this article I will use the
new TBeacon component. This component wraps
the TBeaconManager class defined in the
System.Beacon unit. If you don't want to use the
design time component, you can easily replicate the
functionality using TBeaconManager directly.
The TBeacon component has a number of
As I have three beacons, the apps user interface will
properties and events. Since I am using OS X and
update differently for each beacon.
iOS platforms for deployment, many of the
properties are not used. This is due to using the
I will place a beacon in the office, lounge and
built in iBeacon support for beacons in those
kitchen. When the application is running and
frameworks. Below is a screen capture of the
beacon scanning enabled, the office beacon will
published properties for the component. For the
display a quote on screen, the kitchen beacon will
app I only had to add an entry to the
display a recipe and the lounge will display the title
MonitorizedRegions collection. This can be done at
of a Disney movie.
design time however in the constructor I clear the
design time entry and add the beacon region
While each beacon will be able to do something
details explicitly.
different, remember the beacon has no functionality
it just broadcasts the four pieces of information.
Properties
For this app the Major version value of the beacon
I'll highlight a couple of properties that I believe
determines what is displayed. The interface is
are important / interesting.
very basic; a Switch to toggle the Enabled
property of the TBeacon component and a
couple of labels to output the text that
accompanies each beacon as it comes
into range.

Below is a screen capture of the interface at design

time as well as the structure view to highlight the
simplicity.

Mode
This is the kind of Beacon that will be
monitored. There are two beacon standards,
iBeacon (referred to as Standard in the
Embarcadero framework) and Alternate.
AltBeacon is a competing specification with
iBeacon however fortunately for us
Embarcadero supports both with their
beacon framework.

Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE 41

WORKING WITH BEACONS IN DELPHI XE8 (CONTINUATION 2)
Enabled
Must be set to True to ensure monitoring of
specified regions occur.
CalcMode
This determines how the distance is calculated.
The default value of Stabilized means the beacon
framework will use a common distance calculation
for you. The other value is Raw and this means no
calculation is done.
SPC
This is the signal processing constant which is
used when calculating the distance. This property
is not used for iOS deployed apps.
Properties of special note
The following properties are not used for iOS apps
but are important because both affect battery life
and one may be too short depending on the signal
frequency of your beacon.
ScanningTime
This is the time spent scanning a region.
The default value of 500ms might be too low if
your beacons are setup to only transmit every
1000ms. The Estimote beacons default signal
interval is 950ms. They will still be located, but it
might take a couple of scans to discover so if speed
is an issue, increasing this value will help.
ScanningSleepingTime
This is the elapsed time in milliseconds between
scans.
Events
A number of events are provided with the TBeacon
component. Three of the events provide the most
use. These are OnBeaconEnter, OnBeaconExit and
OnBeaconProximity.
42
OnBeaconEnter
The event is called when a beacon has been
identified in the region specified. The event
parameters include a reference to the IBeacon
interface of the internally stored beacon as well as a
full list of beacons within the region.
OnBeaconExit
The event signature is the same as the
OnBeaconEnter event. The IBeacon parameter
references the beacon that is no longer available, as
well as the full list of beacons within the region.
OnBeaconProximity
This event is called when a monitored beacon has
changed its proximity. In other words you are
either getting closer to the beacon, or further from
it. This event provides access to the beacon via the
IBeacon interface as well as the new proximity
value.
It would have been nice if it also provided the
previous proximity value.
Other Events
The OnCalcDistance event is called to allow you to
provide your own distance calculation of the
beacon. If you are finding the default distance
calculation is inaccurate with your beacon, you
might try an alternate calculation available on the
internet. Note: Not many SDK providers publish
the formula used to calculate distance. Estimote do
not publish the formula used.
The OnParseManufacturerData event is called once
a beacon is located to allow interpreting the
manufacture specific data available from the
beacon. Many manufacturers provide additional
information apart from the required values which
are usually read by using their SDK. If you know
the layout of the signal data, this event is called to
allow you to interpret this additional data.
Public Methods
There are only three public methods available.
They are StartScan, StopScan and Nearest. The first
two are called internally when changing the
Enabled property so you don't need to call them
directly. The Nearest method could be of use
depending on the app you are creating.
For example in the sample application, since I don't
live in a mansion having three beacons around the
house it is easy to be within the range of at least
two at once.
Issue Nr 1 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE
 WORKING WITH BEACONS IN DELPHI XE8 (CONTINUATION 3)

By using the Nearest method in procedure TfrmMain.UpdateInterfaceFor(const ABeacon:

conjunction with the OnBeaconProximity, THouseBeacon);
it is possible to also be showing begin
if ABeacon = nil then
information for the beacon the app is ResetInterface
nearest. It is also advisable to use the else
Nearest method when a beacon has begin
BackgroundRectangle.Fill.Color := ABeacon.Color;
triggered the OnBeaconExit event to
// Call the method that gets the beacon specific content
ensure your app interface doesn't go BeaconLabel.Text := ABeacon.Proc;
blank when there is still at least one BeaconLabel.TextSettings.FontColor := ABeacon.FontColor;
beacon within range. HeadingLabel.Text := ABeacon.Title;
NOTE: Since the proximity zone is based HeadingLabel.TextSettings.FontColor :=
BeaconLabel.TextSettings.FontColor;
on the distance calculation, it is possible to end;
see unexpected results for proximity end;
occasionally due to the inaccuracy in
calculating distance.
Handled Events
Code Samples The sample handles three of the available TBeacon
The TBeacon component makes it very easy to events. The first is the OnBeaconEnter event.
interact with beacons so there are only a couple of
interest points to cover from the procedure TfrmMain.MainBeaconBeaconEnter(const Sender: TObject;
accompanying app for this const ABeacon: IBeacon; const CurrentBeaconList: TBeaconList);
article to show. var
LBeacon: THouseBeacon;
begin
Useful Details if ABeacon.Proximity in [TBeaconProximity.Immediate,
A list of available beacons is TBeaconProximity.Near] then
created when the app starts. begin
LBeacon := GetBeacon(ABeacon.Major);
This allows us to update the
UpdateInterfaceFor(LBeacon);
interface based solely on the end;
beacon Major version value. end;
The class that holds the
information is very basic and includes a method
pointer for retrieving the actual content the beacon The second is the OnBeaconProximity event.
needs to display. procedure TfrmMain.MainBeaconBeaconProximity(
THouseBeacon = class const Sender: TObject; const ABeacon: IBeacon;
private Proximity: TBeaconProximity);
FLocation: THouseLocation; begin
FMajor: Word; if Proximity >= TBeaconProximity.Far then
FColor: TAlphaColor; UpdateInterfaceUseNearest;
FTitle: string; end;
FFontColor: TAlphaColor;
FProc: THouseInfoProc;
public
Finally the OnBeaconExit event
constructor Create(const AMajor: Word; const ATitle: string;
const ALocation: THouseLocation; is very simple. It updates the
const AColor, AFontColor: TAlphaColor; interface to display information
const AProc: THouseInfoProc); about the nearest beacon. If no
property Title: string read FTitle; beacon is within range, the user
property Location: THouseLocation read FLocation;
property Major: Word read FMajor;
interface is cleared.
property Color: TAlphaColor read FColor;
property FontColor: TAlphaColor read FFontColor;
property Proc: THouseInfoProc read FProc; procedure TfrmMain.MainBeaconBeaconExit(
end; const Sender: TObject;
const ABeacon: IBeacon;
const CurrentBeaconList: TBeaconList);
Since the beacon details are registered, the
begin
method for updating the user interface is simple UpdateInterfaceUseNearest;
and only contains one conditional statement to end;
cater for when no beacons are within range.

Issue Nr 2 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE 43

WORKING WITH BEACONS IN DELPHI XE8 (CONTINUATION 4)
Before running the code for your beacons be sure
to update the beacon identifying constants for
the app.
Below is a device capture when running the app
on my iPhone 5.
44
Using a Manufacturers SDK
It is important to point out that depending on the
beacon manufacturer, additional data outside of the
required information may be broadcasted. Estimote
have a connectivity mode (which is an
authenticated communication) where additional
information can be retrieved from the beacon.
For an Estimote beacon, this includes temperature,
battery life, firmware updates and also the
frequency at which the beacon signals. This
information can only be used with using the official
Estimote SDK with your app. This is not something I
have attempted to do with Delphi yet.
Conclusion
Beacons are an interesting addition to the world
and definitely show promise in the areas of
home automation and retail advertising. As
beacons become more powerful, smaller
(Estimote are releasing sticker Nearables soon)
and additional sensors are added the
possibilities for developers to take advantage of
them will increase.
Hopefully I've provided a little insight into the
world of beacons and have convinced you to
acquire some to play around with.
About the author
Jeremy North
owns a company called JED Services Pty. Ltd,
which includes JED Software.
He sells his components and IDE experts
through JED Software and does contracts under
JED Services.
He works exclusively on Win32 at the
moment and has also done quite a bit of .Net in
the past. He wrote most of the initial release of
the Ribbon controls for Delphi 2009.
Issue Nr 1 2015 BLAISE PASCAL MAGAZINE
What is Visuino?
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Embarcadero Delphi XE8 is the fastest way for designing, coding, and extending connected apps across
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Significantly enhance performance with Extend your existing Windows applications

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Features
MULTI-DEVICE APPLICATION DEVELOPMENT
The most productive integrated visual development environment (IDE) with UI designers,
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Develop natively compiled apps for 32-bit Windows X X X X X
Develop natively compiled apps for 64-bit Windows and for Mac OS X X X X X

Develop natively compiled apps for Android and iOS (now Optional
including 64-bit and Universal iOS apps) X X X

FRAMEWORKS, LIBRARIES, AND COMPONENTS

VCL for Windows framework with hundreds of visual components to create user interfaces,
X X X X X
database access and more (components vary by edition)
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FireMonkey FMX multi-device framework for Windows 32-bit and 64-bit X X X X X
OS X Yosemite and Mavericks deployment support including Retina and Mac AppStore X X X X

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RTL with file system access, sensors, Bluetooth, App tethering, parallel threading library
(features vary by edition) X X X X X

DATABASE AND CLOUD SERVICES

Local database connectivity to InterBase, SQLite, MySQL and more X X X X

Client/Server database connectivity for leading database servers including Microsoft SQL Server,
X X X Optional
Oracle, Sybase, DB2, Informix, InterBase, ODBC and more

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Delphi XE8 System Requirements

1 GB RAM (2 GB+ recommended)
7-37 GB free hard disk space depending on edition and configuration,
including space required for temporary files
DVD-ROM drive (if installing from a Media Kit DVD)
Basic GPU Any vendor DirectX 9.0 class or better (Pixel Shader Level 2)
Intel Pentium or compatible, 1.6 GHz minimum (2GHz+ recommended)
1024x768 or higher-resolution monitor
Mouse or other pointing device
Microsoft Windows 8 or 8.1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Microsoft Windows 7 SP1 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Microsoft Windows Server 2008 and 2012 (32-bit and 64-bit)
Delphi can also be run on OS X by using a virtual machine (VM) such as
VMware Fusion or Parallels hosting Windows Vista, 7 or 8

For developing 64-bit Windows applications For developing Mac OS X applications For developing iOS applications Supported Deployment Platforms

PC running a 64-bit version of Windows or
a 32-bit development PC connected with a
PC running a 64-bit version of Windows.
PC running Windows connected with
an Intel-based Mac or a Mac running
Windows in a VM, with 2 GB RAM or more,
running OS X 10.10 (Yosemite) or 10.9
(Mavericks).
PC running Windows connected with an
Intel-based Mac or a Mac running Win-
dows in a VM, with 2 GB RAM or more,
running OS X 10.10 or 10.9 with Xcode 6
An Apple Developer account is required
to deploy iOS apps to physical devices.
PCs and tablets with Intel/AMD processors
running Windows 7, 8, 8.1, Server 2008,
or Server 2012. Macs running OS X 10.9
or 10.10. iPhone, iPad, or iPod Touch
running iOS 7. Android phones and tablets:
ARMv7 devices with NEON support, running
Ice Cream Sandwich (4.0.3-4.0.4), Jelly Bean
(4.1.x, 4.2.x, 4.3.x) or KitKat (4.4.x) and
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2015 Embarcadero Technologies, Inc. Embarcadero, the Embarcadero Technologies logos, and all other Embarcadero Technologies product or service names are trademarks or registered trademarks of
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