Question

Question One

I have

var example : array[0..15] of char;

I want to assign the value from an input to that variable

example := inputbox('Enter Name', 'Name', '');

---

In the highscores unit I have record and array

type
points = record
var
  _MemoryName : array[0..15] of char;
  _MemoryScore : integer;
end;

var
rank : array[1..3] of points;

---

var s: string;
 a: packed array[0..15] of char;

highscoresdata.position[1]._MemoryName := StrPLCopy(a, s, Length(a)) ;

returns -> (186): E2010 Incompatible types: 'array[0..15] of Char' and 'PWideChar'

var s: string;
 a: packed array[0..15] of char;

             s := InputBox('caption', 'Caption', 'Caption');
             FillChar(a[0], length(a) * sizeof(char), #0);
             Move(s[1], a[0], length(a) * sizeof(char));
      scores.rank[1]._MemoryName := <<tried both s and a>> ;

returns (189): E2008 Incompatible types

Answer 1

Question One

There are many ways. One is:

procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
var
  s: string;
  a: packed array[0..15] of char;
begin
  s := InputBox(Caption, Caption, Caption);
  assert(length(s) <= 16);
  FillChar(a[0], length(a) * sizeof(char), #0);
  Move(s[1], a[0], length(s) * sizeof(char));
end;

But there might be a more elegant solution to your original problem, I suspect.

Question Two

Every time you wish a function/procedure didn’t have a particular argument, you should realize that there might be a problem with the design of the project. Nevertheless, it isn’t uncommon that Sender parameters are superfluous, because they are almost omnipresent because of the design of the VCL (in particular, the TNotifyEvent). If you know that the receiving procedure doesn’t care about the Sender parameter, simply give it anything, like Self or nil.

Question Three

Consider this code:

procedure TForm4.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
var
  a: packed array[0..15] of char;
  b: packed array[0..15] of char;
begin
  a := b;
end;

This doesn’t work. You cannot treat arrays like strings; in particular, you cannot assign static arrays like this (a := b).

Instead, you have to do something like…

Move(b[0], a[0], length(a) * sizeof(char));

…or simply loop and copy one value at a time. But the above simple assignment (a := b) does work if you declare a static array type:

type
  TChrArr = packed array[0..15] of char;

procedure TForm4.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
var
  a: TChrArr;
  b: TChrArr;
begin
  b := a;
end;