Currently, the only way to print Pointer is to use SysUtils.Format or by typecasting it to PtrUInt first. Why not let it possible to print it directly? Any good reason for not allowing users to do it?

leledumbo wrote

Currently, the only way to print Pointer is to use SysUtils.Format or by typecasting it to PtrUInt first. Why not let it possible to print it directly? Any good reason for not allowing users to do it?

Because there are easy ways around it (as you mention) and the work to implement and maintain this would probably outweigh the usefulness.

Jonas

Jonas Maebe-2 wrote

Because there are easy ways around it (as you mention) and the work to implement and maintain this would probably outweigh the usefulness.

Yes, it's easy but uncomfortable and needs more typing.

leledumbo

Well, sure, but printing pointer values in most cases is a pure debugging aid and nothing really useful.

Vinzent.

> Because there are easy ways around it (as you mention) and the work to > implement and maintain this would probably outweigh the usefulness. > Yes, it's easy but uncomfortable and needs more typing.

You can use hexstr() to convert the pointer to a hexadeciaml number:

var p: pointer;
begin
  ;
  writeln(hexstr(p));
end.

Well. Since the biggest time of programming is spent on debugging I guess, there is more need for a PtrToStr than for FloatToStr.

lcl users can simply use dbgs().

Mattias

Hi!

I suggest to extend Write and WriteLn, that for Pointer typed parameters those are printed in hex, e.g.

Var Edit : TEdit;
Begin
  Edit := TEdit.Create;
  WriteLn('Edit = ',Pointer(Edit));
End

then prints to the screen

Edit = $B0283958

Would be very handy for debugging, similar like C++'s

  cout << "Edit = " << (void*)Edit << endl;

(okok, streams are ugly syntax at least, but the overloaded operator for untyped (void) pointers comes in handy instead of FreePascal's IntToHex(PtrUInt(Edit),8)

Bye
Hansi

My mistake. As I spend most of my time designing the things first, so that debugging (especially at such a level) is reduced to a minimum, I might not have noticed yet that printing pointer values actually adds value to a delivered application.

Honestly, in the rare cases where I really need to do such things, the amount of typing work to add the typecast is negligible.

Vinzent.

It might also interfere with existing features like writeln(pchar); ?