[fpc-pascal] connecting with Delphi (object files,dll etc)

[Пётр Косаревский]

I have a question concerning connecting FreePascal function with Delphi application (under win32).

I hope I'm totally wrong in my approach and so hope for some help.

1. DLL files created by FPC 2.0.2 are not usable under Delphi forms (there are about 5 posted unfixed bugs about it by different persons). (But they work, e.g. when you use FPC-FPC.)

2. Of course, rewriting source to be Delphi compatible is poor option: it requires some work and gets slow working program (I want (have) Delphi frontend for intensely calculating FPC console program/unit/library).

3. Connecting object file is difficult: FPC doesn't support OMF (object files), and in FPC 2.0.2 support for COFF (object files) seems to be dropped. FPC produces PECOFF (object files).
Sometimes you can translate COFF to OMF by (free?) Borland utility COFF2OMF, but it's not well documented: FPC *.o files are not translated, and I don't know the exact reason (is it their PECOFFness or some other incompatibility? maybe I just use them in a wrong way?).

If this approach (DLL or object files) is despairing, I add a few words about two other methods...

4. Pipes are nice when you redirect stdout of some utility to file, but are pretty unclearly documented (yes, I do grow my hands from behind and can't get them to work stable for Delphi-FPC pair with bidirectional information flow).

5. The last approach is freaky: just run one application from the other and exchange information via named file on disk.

Can anybody suggest something on one of this method? Can anybody suggest some other way of program to program communication of Delphi-FPC?