Is there documentation for TRegistry somewhere? I've been searching for information on it, and so far I've only been able to find:

https://wiki.freepascal.org/fcl-registry
and
http://docwiki.appmethod.com/appmethod/1.17/codeexamples/en/TRegistry_(Objec t_Pascal)

They kind of get me started but I'm looking for a complete list of all functions and how to use them.
The main problem I am having is that my program is crashing with an error 217:
An unhandled exception occurred at $004124A4:
ERegistryException: Invalid registry data type: "Type"

I'm pretty sure it's because the registry key I am interested is not a string, it's a Dword. but all the examples I find use Registry.WriteString() and Registry.ReadString()

I've been able to use Registry.GetValueNames() to get the names of all the keys. and now that I have that, I'm thinking there should be a way to find out what type of key they all are and more functions to read and write the different types of keys.

Anyone know where I can find this information?

James

In Lazarus , in your source code, you can can "Ctrl + Click" on Registry.ReadString and it will bring you to the declaration of TRegistry.ReadString in unit Registry. There you will find there are other methods like ReadInteger, ReadInt64, ReadBinaryData. I'm not sure which one will best match the DWord type.

You can have a look too at TRegDataType type, it seems there is nothing special for DWord.

I'm not using Lazarus.

I guess I can try to make a sample program with it just to see what the options are.

It seems like there should be a ReadDword, and ReadQword because there are an awful lot of Dword and Qword types in the registry.

James

You can have a look too at TRegDataType type, it seems there is nothing

special for DWord.

I got the list of functions you mentioned in Lazarus.. Here are all the ones
that can read:
    function ReadCurrency(const Name: UnicodeString): Currency;
    function ReadCurrency(const Name: String): Currency;
    function ReadBinaryData(const Name: UnicodeString; var Buffer; BufSize:
Integer): Integer;
    function ReadBinaryData(const Name: String; var Buffer; BufSize:
Integer): Integer;
    function ReadBool(const Name: UnicodeString): Boolean;
    function ReadBool(const Name: String): Boolean;
    function ReadDate(const Name: UnicodeString): TDateTime;
    function ReadDate(const Name: String): TDateTime;
    function ReadDateTime(const Name: UnicodeString): TDateTime;
    function ReadDateTime(const Name: String): TDateTime;
    function ReadFloat(const Name: UnicodeString): Double;
    function ReadFloat(const Name: String): Double;
    function ReadInteger(const Name: UnicodeString): Integer;
    function ReadInteger(const Name: String): Integer;
    function ReadInt64(const Name: UnicodeString): Int64;
    function ReadInt64(const Name: String): Int64;
    function ReadString(const Name: UnicodeString): UnicodeString;
    function ReadString(const Name: String): string;
    procedure ReadStringList(const Name: UnicodeString; AList: TStrings;
ForceUtf8: Boolean=False);
    procedure ReadStringList(const Name: String; AList: TStrings);
    function ReadStringArray(const Name: UnicodeString):
TUnicodeStringArray;
    function ReadStringArray(const Name: String): TStringArray;
    function ReadTime(const Name: UnicodeString): TDateTime;
    function ReadTime(const Name: String): TDateTime;

as far as I can see I need to use something like ReadBinaryData ??? does anyone have an example on how to do that? It looks like it's wanting a buffer of some sort. or can I just pass it my Dword variable somehow? It seems over complicated

I still find it strange there is no ReadDword and ReadQword when those two are an entire third of possible registry entries.. If you go to RegEdit, there are only 6 kinds of registry entries: String Value
Binary Value
DWord
Qword
Multi-String Value
Expandable String Value

Maybe all these other ones like Float and Int64 are for other versions of windows?? As far as I can see it's impossible to define a float in the windows registry, with windows 10 professional 64 bit anyway. Are there other kinds of 'Registries' that all these functions would be useful for other than THE Registry (referring to the windows registry)?

Am I missing something? Does Linux have a registry or something? I thought it was a windows thing. Why aren't there easy ways to read and write Dwords and Qwords when there are so many of them in the windows registry?

Is all this for something other than the windows registry? The fact that the functions do not match what is possible with the windows registry is making me think I have the wrong thing all together. Are there functions to use the windows registry in the Windows unit?

James

PM Jean SUZINEAU wrote

I'm not sure which one will best match the DWord type.

You'll have to use the Integer / Int64 variant and hardcats it to DWord/QWord.

IIRC this is Delphi compatible.

Of course it is peanuts to implement Read/WriteD/QWord() yourself if you subclass TRegistry (and call the subclass TRegistry). I have a Windows only implementation of TRegistry which actually implements this.
(My implementation of the registry does not support TRegIniFile b.t.w.)

Thanks for the help, it's working fine using readinteger I guess as long as I don't have any values large enough to need the most significant digit that would work...

In order to change the value I want to change, I need to run my program as administrator, is there a way to change to administrator with a request from within the program? I guess I could make just a small program that changes the key I want to change and launch that in administrator mode from the main program.. just curious is there was a way to do it with a single program.

James

As I said before, it is compatible with Delphi.
See: http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/Libraries/Sydney/en/System.Win.Registry.TRegistry_Methods

Le 16/06/2021 à 00:31, James Richters via fpc-pascal a écrit :

Thanks for the help, it's working fine using readinteger I guess as long as I don't have any values large enough to need the most significant digit that would work...

I guess that what was meaning Bart by hardcat is that you need to
transtype the result this way:
var dw: DWord;
begin
      dw:= DWord( Registry.ReadInteger(...)) ;

Integer and DWord have the same memory size (4 bytes) so this way you don't "lose" the most significant bit, you get your real DWord.

Indeed.
This is a lossless operation.

Le 16/06/2021 à 00:31, James Richters via fpc-pascal a écrit :

In order to change the value I want to change, I need to run my program as administrator, is there a way to change to administrator with a request from within the program? I guess I could make just a small program that changes the key I want to change and launch that in administrator mode from the main program.. just curious is there was a way to do it with a single program.

I've never done this  but I think you dig about privilege elevation on Microsoft Developer Network website:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/search/?terms=privilege%20elevation

I think there is a way to do this with a single program.

PM Jean SUZINEAU wrote

I think there is a way to do this with a single program.

Using Lazarus IDE I tried to set Execution level to "requireAdministrator", but then the program simply would not run (it would not ask for the admin password), so in the end I just used something like:

uses
  WinUtils;
procedure CheckIsAdmin;
begin
  if not WinUtils.IsWindowsAdmin then
  begin
    writeln('This program requires administrator priviliges.');
    writeln;
    Halt;
  end;
end;

Bart

I just add a small program to illustrate the type cast between signed and unsigned:

var
    si: ShortInt;
begin
      si:= -127;
      WriteLn( 'si ', si);
      WriteLn( 'Byte(si) ', Byte(si));
      si:= -1;
      WriteLn( 'si ', si);
      WriteLn( 'Byte(si) ', Byte(si));
end.

gives

$ ./project1
si -127
Byte(si) 129
si -1
Byte(si) 255
$