Question

I build four different “types” of applications with my framework:

1) Windows Services
2) Normal Applications
3) Service Applications (a normal application with the functionality of a Windows Service but with a local GUI console and an ability to auto-upgrade)
4) Remote GUI Consoles

Now I can detect, through code, if the application is a Windows Service. But currently to detect between the others I use DEFINES that need to be added to the project file. I would like find an alternate way that does not rely on DEFINES if possible. My initial thoughts are to use the Comments field of the project’s version info.

Any ideas?

Edit: I am after a general technique that works regardless of how I “type” my applications. At the moment I use DEFINES from the project configuration, which works, but makes the code slightly messier than using “if” code switches, and because it is stored in the .dproj file, can be hidden from view.

Solution: From David’s suggestion I initially used the conditional defines (and any other information such as whether the application was running as a Windows Service) to map all applications to one of the 4 application types, stored in a globally accessible object. Unless linking files that made no sense to include with a particular application type, I replaced almost all of my conditional compilation flags with code, which significantly improved the readability of the code. There are a few other “tweaks” I implemented, but that was the basic implementation.

Answer 1

Depending how you are using the Application global variable you can detect if you application is a Service, a VCL or a console App checking the type of this global variable. for consoles app you can use the System.IsConsole variable.

function ApplicationIsService(Component:TComponent):Boolean;
begin
   Result:=Component.ClassName='TServiceApplication';
end;

function ApplicationIsVcl(Component:TComponent):Boolean;
begin
   Result:=Component.ClassName='TApplication';
end;

and you can use like this

if ApplicationIsVcl(Application) then
//do something
else
if ApplicationIsService(Application) then
//do something else
else
if IsConsole then
//do another thing