Michael Van Canneyt wrote:
All this doesn't exclude that a specialized class may be more suitable for
the job.
To be honest, the only good point of TStringList seems to be that it is
default available on all Object Pascal. The specialised stuff (splitting
strings) is also plagued with oddities. (most notably the fact that
characters under space are always used as separator)
Why do you call this oddities ? For GUI programming (and that's what it was
implemented for) it makes perfect sense.
Early i think that the space issue in DelimitedText was only something
with very few usages. Later i found that is useless.
Take the following scenario: you want to load a csv into a TStrings.
In TStrings to add a string with space is necessary to enclose it with
quotes
For example: if you want that the csv string 'aaaa;bb bb;cccc' becomes a
TStrings with 3 items (aaaa, bb bb and cccc), is necessary to transform
'aaaa;bb bb;cccc' into 'aaaa;"bb bb";cccc'
But to do this in a generic way, without knowing if determined value has
space than you have to parse each item of the csv, check if has space
and then quote. But in this case is better to add the string directly
through add method.
I just want to illustrate that, if programmed correctly, TList,
TStringList and friends can still get you a long way...
I think that the lengths to which people will go to stick to them paints
what is needed to make a serious effort to make them legacy.
I fail to see why, but no doubt you have your reasons. I'd like to see a
complete
list of 'issues' with TStrings (not TStringList, that's just a specific
implementation).
Maybe we can then create a TFPStrings which would be interface compatible,
(in the sense that it can replace TStrings without source changes. It can
have internal differences, like the space handling) but with a more sensible
behaviour ?
Good idea, i think the same.
My issue suggestion is fix the DelimitedText handling space. See above.
I have a small function that parses csv strings and add to a TStrings
but uses strutils.posex.
In terms of flexibility, and to comtemple those that want to quote a
string with space (or whatever) an event can be added to be called at
each added string though delimitedtext. but since we are talking about
efficiency i dont think a good idea.
Luiz
_______________________________________________
fpc-pascal maillist - fpc-pascal@lists.freepascal.org
http://lists.freepascal.org/mailman/listinfo/fpc-pascal
