Mitical Man Month

Object Pascal Language Guide

Borland®

Object Pascal
Borland Software Corporation 100 Enterprise Way, Scotts Valley, CA 95066-3249 www.borland.com

Borland Software Corporation may have patents and/or pending patent applications covering subject matter in this document. The furnishing of this document does not give you any license to these patents. COPYRIGHT © 1983, 2001 Borland SoftwareCorporation. All rights reserved. All Borland brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of Borland Software Corporation. Other brand and product names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders. Printed in the U.S.A. ALP0000WW21000 1E0R0501 0102030405-9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 D3

Contents
Chapter 1

Introduction
What’s in this manual? . . . . . . . .. . . . Using Object Pascal . . . . . . . . . . . . Typographical conventions . . . . . . . . Other sources of information . . . . . . . . . Software registration and technical support . . . . . . . . . .

1-1
1-1 1-1 1-2 1-2 1-3

Part I

Basic language description
Chapter 2

Overview
Program organization . . . . . . . . . . . Pascal source files . . . . . . . . . . . Other files usedto build applications Compiler-generated files . . . . . . . Example programs. . . . . . . . . . . . . A simple console application . . . . . A more complicated example . . . . . A native application . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2-1
2-1 2-1 2-2 2-3 2-3 2-3 2-4 2-5

Chapter 3

Programs and units
Program structure and syntax . . . . . .The program heading . . . . . . . . . The program uses clause . . . . . . . The block . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Unit structure and syntax . . . . . . . . . The unit heading . . . . . . . . . . . . The interface section . . . . . . . . . . The implementation section. . . . . . The initialization section. . . . . . . . The finalization section . . . . . . . . Unit references and the usesclause . . . The syntax of a uses clause . . . . . . Multiple and indirect unit references Circular unit references . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3-1
3-1 3-2 3-2 3-2 3-3 3-3 3-4 3-4 3-4 3-5 3-5 3-6 3-6 3-7

Chapter 4

Syntactic elements
Fundamental syntactic elements . Special symbols . . . . . .. . . Identifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . Qualified identifiers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

4-1
4-1 4-2 4-2 4-2 iii

Reserved words . . . . . . . . . . Directives. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Numerals . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Labels . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Character strings . . . . . . . . . Comments and compiler directives . Expressions. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Operators. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Arithmetic operators . . . . . Boolean operators . . . . . . . Logical (bitwise) operators . . String operators . . . . . . . . Pointer operators. . . . . . . . Set operators . . . . . . . . . . Relational operators . . . . . . Class operators . . . . . . . . . The @ operator . . . . . . . . . Operator precedence rules . . Functioncalls . . . . . . . . . . . Set constructors . . . . . . . . . . Indexes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Typecasts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Value typecasts . . . . . . . . . Variable typecasts . . . . . . . Declarations and statements . . . . . Declarations . . . . . . . . . . . . Statements . . . . . . . . . . . . . Simple statements . . . . . . . . . Assignment statements . . . . Procedure andfunction calls . Goto statements . . . . . . . . Structured statements. . . . . . . Compound statements . . . . With statements . . . . . . . . If statements . . . . . . . . . . Case statements . . . . . . . . Control loops . . . . . . . . . . Repeat statements . . . . . . . While statements. . . . . . . . For statements . . . . . . . . . Blocks and scope . . . . . . . . . . . Blocks . . . . . ....