Hello everybody!

For some time now I have noticed a small incompatibility between FPC and BP(7) about the loading of include files. I am currently using FPC 1.0.4 so if this is already resolved in a more recent version please drop me a note and excuse me bothering you with that.

This different behaviour leads for me to a slight inconvenience, so I could live with it, but is different to BP7 and as FPC tries to be fully compatible this may be of interest.

It is about the ordering of the include files directories. In BP the current directory is searched first, probably next is the directory where the compiled file is located (I haven't verified this so please check if you want to be shure, may be this has to be given explicitly) and then the specified additional directories are checked. In FPC the directory where the compiled file is located is checked ALLWAYS FIRST, I have found no switch or option to change this and this makes me some trouble now.

But besides that, from the logical view the BP approach seems to be better - if you use an include file for some settings (compiler defines, variables etc.) and compile your project in a different directory than some common used files (e.g. Units), the units may be compiled with wrong settings (as long as local files are present at the units location, let's say for test purpose when these units were originally written).

I don't know if maybe now someone depends on the new include directory ordering which would be broken if this is reverted to the BP scheme, but at least a compiler flag may be introduced (or to be implicitly in -So which for 1.0.4 is not).
From historical view, I had noticed that at some 0.9x release of FPC but at this point it was not important. Now when I try to migrate my projects to FPC this difference is noticed well.

Comments are apreciated.

Have a nice day,

FPC is compatible with Delphi/Kylix. I don't have tp7 installed here to test. But the test i did was:

./p.inc
writeln('hallo');
./pp/p.pp
begin
  {$i p.inc}
end.
./pp/p.inc
writeln('hello');

And then compile ./pp/p.pp, the output of the generated executable was 'hello'

IMHO is not good to make differences in behaviour in which order FPC will find files. The -S is for Syntax/Semantics within the sources and not how and where it will find files.

Was this test with fpc? Then this confirms what I have noticed. Or have you tested this with Delphi/Kylix? Then they seem to have changed it. Maybe without noticing ;-).

IMHO is not good to make differences in behaviour in which order FPC will find files. The -S is for Syntax/Semantics within the sources and not how and where it will find files.

You are right, if fpc tries to be fully Delphi/Kylix compatible then their search behaviour should be the same. Even if I see no good in this kind of ordering. (Can someone explain me why he would prefer this search order from the one I need?)

Is there a way for the current release to make the compiler search the current directory first (except compiling my own of course ;-))? The -Fi (-I) flag only appends a directory and I haven't found any other.

For the future, it would be nice to have a switch for this compatibility or at least a switch to add directories at the beginning of the search list (I can't remember on what compiler I have seen such a switch but there was one). Otherwise I have no idea how to make my bigger projects coexist with BP and FPC... :-(

Thanks and have a nice day,