[fpc-pascal]Questions about the new features in version1.2.

[Sebastian Günther]

Gabor DEAK JAHN wrote:
> 
> At 4/9/01 10:27 AM, you wrote:
> 
> Sebastian,
> 
>  > An interface is similar to a class which consists only of virtual
> 
>  > A WideString is a reference counted string of arbitrary length, just as
> 
> Could you give us a very rough estimate of when these could be expected in a
> stable release?

Don't ask me, these features are only available in FPC 1.1, so you would
have to wait until 1.1 stabilizes. Which might take some time; I'm not
happy about this either, but I cannot influence this. The compiler guys
want some other stuff in 1.1 before a new major release will be built.


> I know that such things are very hard to predict and I don't
> want to call you to account with a set date, but I would like to have an
> idea whether it could be weeks, months or years?

(Florian? Any estimate?)


> I'd need both quite badly

me too...


> Also, will there be a non-reference counted Unicode string as well? Many
> Win32 function require that, just like a PChar but made up of words instead
> of bytes.

PWideChar should do the job (although I don't think that it is fully
implemented in FPC yet. The whole Unicode support is not really complete
or tested, but hopefully this will be done within the next few weeks.)

WideString itself will always be reference counted, as it is the case
with Kylix and Delphi >=6.0

But you can always cast a WideString to a constant PWideChar with zero
overhead; just the way you can use AnsiStrings with constant PChar
arguments.


- Sebastian