Hello together!

On the German Delphi-Forum Delphi-PRAXiS there was the question in which unit the type TObjectList resided in Lazarus. Besides the obvious answer "contnrs" there was also the suggestion to use F1 on the TObjectList identifier to let the help find it for you. (For those that can read German, here is the thread:
http://www.delphipraxis.net/178892-lazarus-kennt-keine-tobjectlist.html )

Now the problem is that this won't work in Lazarus which will return a error message "Hilfeschl?sselwort "FPCKeyword_TObjectList" nciht[sic!] gefunden." ("Help keyword "FPCKeyword_TObjectList" not found") [plus another, in my opinion needless, error message afterwards with (in my case) "No help found for "project1.lpr" at (13,16)"] and the user is none the wiser... This is at least the case in 1.0.12 on win64, I didn't check for any changes here in 1.2/1.3...

Are there any ideas for improving this situation for people that know that there is an identifier in the RTL, FCL, whatever, but don't know which unit it resides in? E.g. Lazarus did scan the FPC sources, couldn't it keep an identifier->unit index? Also could the error message be improved a bit? E.g. kick out that second error and use "TObjectList" instead of "FPCKeyword_TObjectList" in the error message?

Regards,
Sven

This is a great feature suggestion. If implemented I think it should also work with constants. For example, it cost me some 10+ minutes to figure out VK_ESCAPE is defined in LCLTypes.

Thanks!

2014-02-05 Sven Barth :

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[...] Now the problem is that this won't work in Lazarus which will return a error message "Hilfeschl?sselwort "FPCKeyword_TObjectList" nciht[sic!] gefunden."

I fixed the typo.

Mattias

(For those that can read

The above message is now omitted. The hint is now in the debug log.

It only scanned the directories for file names. This alone can take minutes on slow disks/networks.
There are currently two identifier->unit indices.

Code Browser:
- built in the IDE
- scans current project or IDE and all currently used packages
- does not save index to disk
- does not show identifiers of other packages (not used by project/IDE)

Cody Identifier Dictionary
- installed when Cody is installed
- keeps track of all scanned identifiers
- stores index to disk
- shows identifiers of other packages (if you used them once)
- if you used several copies of a unit on your disk, it will show all of them
- can be confusing when you renamed files or worked cross platform.

Basically you can use the Code Browser to update the dictionary. Both show only top level identifiers, not sub identifiers or parameters.

When an identifier was not found it now starts the code browser, so TObjectList of contnrs is now shown.

Also could the error message be improved a bit? E.g. kick out that second error and use "TObjectList" instead of "FPCKeyword_TObjectList" in the error message?

You now get the codebrowser. There you can search for packages, units and identifiers.

Mattias

Great. :)

[snip]

Great! Let's see how good that will work. :) Any chance this could still be in 1.2?

Regards,
Sven

[...] Both show only top level identifiers, not sub identifiers or parameters.

Correction: The Code Browser does show sub identifiers. :)

Mattias

Well, there is the risk that it breaks F1 on identifiers.

I need testers.

Mattias

It seems to still work correctly.

Is it normal though that the "select help entry" dialog shows duplicates? This happens e.g. when using F1 on "var" (contents "Pascal keyword "var"" and "Pascal keyword "var" (2)") and on "TObjectList" with "contnrs" in uses clause (contents: "FCL - Free Pascal Component Library Units ( type TObjectList in
e:\fpc\svn\packages\fcl-base\src\contnrs.pp)" (twice!) [sidenote: a horizontal scrollbar would be nice here as well, although I know that the window can be resized...]).

Also how should one select an identifier in the Code Browser to get the help entry? Double clicking the entry opens the class' declaration inside the editor, but I'd like to get the help...

Regards,
Sven

On Wed, 5 Feb 2014 12:25:18 +0100
Mattias Gaertner wrote:

Can we hope to someday get the feature that Lazarus adds the unit where a type/function/whatever is defined automatically to the uses clause when it is used for the first time (just like Eclipse does for Java imports)?

R.

On Wed, 5 Feb 2014 12:25:18 +0100 Mattias Gaertner wrote: Can we hope to someday get the feature that Lazarus adds the unit where a type/function/whatever is defined automatically to the uses clause when it is used for the first time (just like Eclipse does for Java imports)?

Please define "automatically".

Mattias

> Can we hope to someday get the feature that Lazarus adds the unit where a type/function/whatever is defined automatically to the uses clause when it is used for the first time (just like Eclipse does for Java imports)? Please define "automatically".

MS Visual Studio has the red error marker and a popup menu that gives options to fix the code. Adding a missing unit dependency is just one of the corrections. This would be a nice goal.
Eclipse does about the same thing, although Visual Studio may be the best in this respect.
My knowledge may be a little outdated. I should evaluate the top IDEs again.

But yes, a way to add a missing unit reference would be very important.

Juha

Something has to generate these markers.
The compiler is the most reliable tool for that, but it would fail if a required unit fails to compile and it should not write to disk, so it needs temporary output directories.

Mattias

FWIW if you get an "identifier not found" error while compiling, the context menu in the Message View has a "Search identifier" command. It opens the Code Browser (which also could be much cleaner) and searches the class. Then you can open the context menu for the unit found and select "Use unit FOO in unit BAR".

-Fl?vio

>> Can we hope to someday get the feature that Lazarus adds the unit where a type/function/whatever is defined automatically to the uses clause when it is used for the first time (just like Eclipse does for Java imports)? > > Please define "automatically".

Available types (Java standard, user defined or belonging to 'libs' in your class path) are shown in the code completion popup, also the package name where this type is defined. When choosing a type the corresponding import is added to your code.

MS Visual Studio has the red error marker and a popup menu that gives options to fix the code. Adding a missing unit dependency is just one of the corrections.

That's available in Eclipse, too, via 'quick fixes'. But I am more interested in the first one, which I use a lot in Eclipse.

R.

FWIW if you get an "identifier not found" error while compiling, the context menu in the Message View has a "Search identifier" command.

Thanks for the info, but I am lazy and spoiled by the way Eclipse does it. See my other mail for details.

R.

Can you give an example how this should work in Lazarus?

Mattias

In 1.0.12 you need to switch from "Project" to "Lazarus-IDE" to have it find e.g. "TObjectList". In 1.3 this works without the switch. Does someone know whether this is the case in 1.2 as well?

And is it by intension that one needs to select a node before the correct context menu is shown? (win32) E.g. doing a right click on the "type TObjectList = class(TList)" node without having selected any node shows the menu containing solely the various expand/collapse menu items (and the export entry).

Regards,
Sven

In 1.2RC2 it works correctly ("Project" is selected and "With required packages" is checked).

Yeah, we definitely should enable eoRightClickSelect there. Not to mention some other way cleaner dialog (or switchable tweaks in CB), or better yet (as others already said), inline marking with smarts in the codetools parser ;-) And indexing.

Regards, Sven

Best regards,
Fl?vio

(And should it be the default for the component, if not for compatibility :-/ ) As long as we are at it, may I ask to reset the progress bar after the search is completed? :) Thanks.

Best regards,
Fl?vio

right clicks select is now enabled.

Mattias

[...] As long as we are at it, may I ask to reset the progress bar after the search is completed? :) Thanks.

The progressbar is now hidden after update.

Mattias

Great :)

Regards,
Sven

You could also try to lookup in CHM index. Lookup symbol, and then parse path of the html to get the unit (due to fpdoc structure)

Since the CHM indices are already sorted, this should be doable quickly after the initial decompression.

Sven Barth wrote

Are there any ideas for improving this situation for people that know that there is an identifier in the RTL, FCL, whatever, but don't know which unit it resides in?

Yes, simply use DocView and make sure you specified a help directory where INF help files are located, or concatenate the RTL, FCL and LCL inf help files as a command line parameter. DocView searches are instant, so don't worry about speed by concatenating help files.

For DocView integration in Lazarus IDE (no need for a IDE recompile) follow this link.

http://fpgui.sourceforge.net/docview_ide_integration.shtml

Regards,
- Graeme -

Graeme Geldenhuys wrote

Yes, simply use DocView ...

Been there. Loved it.

But I never was able to generate the files for DocView from the current revisions of the SVNs.

(Here, multiple files are necessary (language definition,. RTL, LCL, "Help on Help" .... you name it. )

- Michael

Michael Schnell wrote

But I never was able to generate the files for DocView from the current revisions of the SVNs.

Last time I tried (a couple months back) the LCL docs wasn't in a state that could be built - or it was a fpdoc bug not yet resolve. I'll update to the latest and see if things are better now. They should be.

(Here, multiple files are necessary (language definition,. RTL, LCL, "Help on Help" .... you name it. )

Simply run:

docview <file1>+<file2+<file_n>
or
docview <path_to_INF_docs>
or
docview <ENV_variable_of_path_or_files>

Regards,
- Graeme -

I was trying o use Docview integrated in in the Lazarus IDE. This is fact worked rather nicely with multiple files. I seem to remember that there were some issues (AFAIR, you intended to solve some of them :-) )

-Michael

I routinely build lcl.chm a couple a times an year, but usually have to run the script to generate some XML files because the LCL build scripts use wildcards to generate the fpdoc cmdline.

IOW, new pas files without docs break the build out of the box.