Question

I’m doing some work with code generation, and one of the things I need to do is create a function call where one of the parameters is a function call, like so:

result := Func1(x, y, Func2(a, b, c));

TStringList.CommaText is very useful for generating the parameter lists, but when I traverse the tree to build the outer function call, what I end up with looks like this:

result := Func1(x, y, "Func2(a, b, c)");

It’s quoting the third argument because it contains commas, and that produced invalid code. But I can’t do something simplistic like StringReplace all double quotes with empty strings, because it’s quite possible that a function argument could be a string with double quotes inside. Is there any way to make it just not escape the lines that contain commas?

Answer 1

1. Build an array of “unlikely characters” : non-keyable like †, ‡ or even non-printable like #129, #141, #143, #144.
2. Verify you don’t have the 1st unlikely anywhere in your StringList.CommaText. Or move to the next unlikely until you get one not used in your StringList.CommaText. (Assert that you find one)
3. Use this unlikely char as the QuoteChar for your StringList
4. Get StringList.DelimitedText. You’ll get the QuoteChar around the function parameters like: result := Func1(x, y, †Func2(a, b, c)†);
5. Replace the unlikely QuoteChar (here †) by empty strings…