[Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes] Yesterday I posted about an issue with type checking in Delphi (and other Pascal) compilers. As mentioned in that post, range checking is fundamentally flawed as a supposed solution to the problem for reasons that are explored further in this post.
[Estimated Reading Time: 3 minutes] Running through some of my code last night, putting them through the new XE4 compiler, threw up a real oddity: Some code that used to compile just fine, which no longer compiles in XE4 and which should not have compiled before!
[Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes] Yesterday I found myself having to write some code that would never be used in order to co-erce the compiler into not complaining that something would not be used when in fact it was.
[Estimated Reading Time: 4 minutes] Much has been made in the past and again more recently, about the lack of a compiler switch in Delph 2009 to govern the behaviour of the String type. CodeGear have repeatedly said that it was not possible/practical to provide such a switch, but their advice to anyone concerned about a unilateral change from ANSI to Unicode string in their applications itself suggests that a switch was not only possible, but actually very simple to incorporate. So much so that they could provide it even now without having to change anything already delivered in Delphi 2009 or committed to for Delphi 2010. Let me explain what I mean.
