[fpc-devel] TStrings and BOM

[Ondrej Pokorny]

On 01.01.2020 23:59, Werner Pamler wrote:
> Am 01.01.2020 um 17:01 schrieb Ondrej Pokorny:
>> Isn't the TStrings.WriteBOM property good enough? Why to have yet 
>> another not-very-useful overload?
>
> To be honest I think Bart's idea of making the BOM an optional 
> parameter of the Save methods appears to me more efficient than 
> defining a property just for this only purpose. Do we really have to 
> imitate all the nonsense dictated by Delphi?

I see it's quite popular to humble every new Delphi feature after Delphi 
7 as being nonsense. Not every time the criticism is valid. And never it 
is a good argument.

The WriteBOM property has a valid purpose - it is set in LoadFrom* 
according to the BOM presence in the loaded file. I.e. if you do:

MyStrings.LoadFromFile('abc'); // WriteBOM and Encoding properties are 
set here
MyStrings.SaveToFile('abc'); // they are used here to save the file as 
it was loaded

The abc file keeps BOM and encoding of the original one. You cannot 
achieve it with the AWriteBOM parameter Bart suggested.

If you want to simplify a call, use a class helper:

TStringsHelper = class helper for TStrings
...
procedure TStringsHelper.SaveToFileWithBOM(aFileName: string);
begin
   WriteBOM := True;
   SaveToFile(aFileName);
end;

Ondrej