Re: [fpc-pascal] History of the Cardinal data type?

2016-03-29 Thread Dmitry Boyarintsev 
On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 9:06 PM, Graeme Geldenhuys <
mailingli...@geldenhuys.co.uk> wrote:

> So I definitely see the benefit in using (U)Int style data types.
> They are a lot more obvious [to the programmer] regarding data ranges
> and byte size.
>

Does, it also make the code less high-level?
Didn't high level use the platform independent notation such as "int" or
"word" to be portable across different platforms back in 60s 70s?
At that time word size might vary dramatically from system to system   (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_(computer_architecture) )
Thus a code written like this:
  a: Int32;
would not be portable, since it requires a target platform to support
32-bit word (or at least the compiler had to be smart enough).

The modern generation of developers doesn't really have to deal with that
too much, due to dominance of 32-bit (as well as virtual machines, such as
java and/or .net).
But jump to 64-bit still caused a bit of confusion (in C/C++ and object
pascal). with type names and sizes.

thanks,
Dmitry
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Re: [fpc-pascal] History of the Cardinal data type?

2016-03-29 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys 
Thanks Marco, interesting history lesson. ;-)

On 2016-03-29 22:16, Marco van de Voort wrote:
> Moreover since shorter types are not always faster, I think it is better to
> forget all this, and in new code use INTEGER for the variable types, where
> range doesn't matter (much) and (u)int for the rest.

I already tend to use Integer for most code, but the code I'm currently
working on has an extensive amount of record structures used to read a
complex binary data file. The documentation for the data file is
primarily in C and uses types like SHORT, USHORT, LONG etc. These
translated easily to the SmallInt, Word, LongWord etc types, but as
already mentioned in can get confusing keeping track of valid ranges and
occasional programmer error.

So I definitely see the benefit in using (U)Int style data types.
They are a lot more obvious [to the programmer] regarding data ranges
and byte size.

I was just surprised not to find any reference to them in the FPC
documentation. I already made personal annotations about them so as not
to be forgotten, but I think it will be beneficial to have them
officially included in the FPC Language Reference too. After all, they
are part of the System unit.

Here is an example of the annotation I added to my own documentation.

 Type Range   Size in bytes

 Int8   = ShortInt-128 .. 127 1
 Int16  = SmallInt  -32768 .. 32767   2
 Int32  = LongInt  -2147483648 .. 2147483647  4
 Int64-9223372036854775808 .. 9223372036854775807 8

 UInt8  = Byte   0 .. 255 1
 UInt16 = Word   0 .. 65535   2
 UInt32 = Cardinal   0 .. 4294967295  4
 UInt64 = QWord  0 .. 184467440737095516158



Regards,
  - Graeme -

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Re: [fpc-pascal] History of the Cardinal data type?

2016-03-29 Thread Marco van de Voort 
In our previous episode, Nikolay Nikolov said:
> compatible, changing Cardinal to 16-bit does more harm that good. Many 
> FPC demos, such as fpctris and samegame now run unmodified on 
> i8086-msdos. 

(that's because parts of them, specially gameunit, have M2 origins)
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Re: [fpc-pascal] History of the Cardinal data type?

2016-03-29 Thread Marco van de Voort 
In our previous episode, Sven Barth said:
> > types with fields of type Word, Smallint etc, than then some Cardinal
> > fields got mixed in too. I would normally use LongWord instead of
> > Cardinal to keep to a consistent naming convention. But from your
> > comments Cardinal has a long history in Pascal.
> 
> I usually use LongWord, too, but with the recent discovery that in Delphi
> LongWord is not always 32-bit (and my tendency to confuse Short and
> SmallInt) I'm inclined to use the (U)IntX (with X being a element of [8,
> 16, 32, 64]) types to avoid any confusion and surprises.

Apparently Embarcadero knew that too, since (with iirc XE2) they added all
variants to Delphi.  FPC supports this for some releases already too (and
longer in ctypes)

I always found specially small and short very confusing so I adopted it
early.
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Re: [fpc-pascal] History of the Cardinal data type?

2016-03-29 Thread Nikolay Nikolov 



On 03/29/2016 06:13 PM, Marco van de Voort wrote:

In our previous episode, Graeme Geldenhuys said:

Just curious. What is the history behind the Cardinal data type. As per
the FPC documentation, it is always mapped to the LongWord type. I
presume it is the same in Delphi.

Cardinal is the Wirthian designation for the default unsigned integer,
just like "integer" is for signed.

The Delphi side of things is more convoluted because pre-int64 Delphis had
31-bits Cardinals.
Even more so, Delphi 1 was 16-bit and its Cardinal type was 16-bit (i.e. 
equal to the "Word" type) With Delphi 2 (the first 32-bit Delphi), 
Cardinal became 32-bit (31-bit, actually, as Marco said).


So, back then it was a CPU-specific unsigned integer type (just like 
"Integer" is the signed version).


Note that even though FPC now also supports 16-bit x86 CPUs, Cardinal is 
still 32-bit unsigned there. Even though this is not Delphi 1 
compatible, changing Cardinal to 16-bit does more harm that good. Many 
FPC demos, such as fpctris and samegame now run unmodified on 
i8086-msdos. If we changed the Cardinal type to 16-bit, they would break 
and require changes in order to work. And most 16-bit code that is 
likely to be ported to FPC is coming from Turbo Pascal, which didn't 
have Cardinal (only "Word", which is always 16-bit), so we don't really 
follow the convention that Cardinal is a platform specific type. So, in 
FPC it is fixed to 32-bit unsigned on all platforms and in all compiler 
modes.


Nikolay
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Re: [fpc-pascal] History of the Cardinal data type?

2016-03-29 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys 
Hi Michael,

On 2016-03-29 16:18, Michael Van Canneyt wrote:
> Longword used to be Cardinal. 
> I guess it was changed for Delphi compatibility.

I really like Sven's idea of using (U)IntX data types where X is 8, 16,
32 or 64 bit. I think this is also future proof, considering Delphi's
data type mess and the fact that FPC likes to be FPC compatible.

With that being said, I noticed the FPC Language Reference doesn't
mention the (U)IntX data types at all. Would it not maybe be useful in
updating Tables 3.1 & 3.2 with the (U)IntX data types?

http://www.freepascal.org/docs-html/ref/refsu5.html


Or maybe add a new table that shows the mapping between (U)IntX and
other Object Pascal types and what range they apply to (similar to Table
3.2).

eg:   Int16 = SmallInt
  UInt16 = Word
  Int32 = Cardinal = LongWord
etc.


I don't mind supplying a documentation patch for you to review.

Regards,
  - Graeme -

-- 
fpGUI Toolkit - a cross-platform GUI toolkit using Free Pascal
http://fpgui.sourceforge.net/

My public PGP key:  http://tinyurl.com/graeme-pgp
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Re: [fpc-pascal] History of the Cardinal data type?

2016-03-29 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys 
On 2016-03-29 20:19, Sven Barth wrote:
> 
> I usually use LongWord, too,

My preference is based on the fact that they often translate nicely from
C code examples and APIs. Plus I know those types and sizes pretty well
(at least when in comes to Free Pascal).


> but with the recent discovery that in Delphi

Luckily Delphi is of no concern to me. :)


> I'm inclined to use the (U)IntX (with X being a element of [8,
> 16, 32, 64]) types to avoid any confusion and surprises.

That's not a bad idea either... I'll look into that for future code.


Regards,
  - Graeme -

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Re: [fpc-pascal] History of the Cardinal data type?

2016-03-29 Thread Sven Barth 
Am 29.03.2016 17:27 schrieb "Graeme Geldenhuys" <
mailingli...@geldenhuys.co.uk>:
>
> On 2016-03-29 16:13, Marco van de Voort wrote:
> > Cardinal is the Wirthian designation for the default unsigned integer,
> > just like "integer" is for signed.
>
> Thanks Marco, that fulfils my curiosity. :)
>
>
> On a side note:
>   The reason I asked this question. I'm working on code with many Record
> types with fields of type Word, Smallint etc, than then some Cardinal
> fields got mixed in too. I would normally use LongWord instead of
> Cardinal to keep to a consistent naming convention. But from your
> comments Cardinal has a long history in Pascal.

I usually use LongWord, too, but with the recent discovery that in Delphi
LongWord is not always 32-bit (and my tendency to confuse Short and
SmallInt) I'm inclined to use the (U)IntX (with X being a element of [8,
16, 32, 64]) types to avoid any confusion and surprises.

Regards,
Sven
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Re: [fpc-pascal] History of the Cardinal data type?

2016-03-29 Thread Dmitry Boyarintsev 
On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 11:31 AM, Graeme Geldenhuys <
mailingli...@geldenhuys.co.uk> wrote:

> On 2016-03-29 16:17, Dmitry Boyarintsev wrote:
> > In Delphi world LongWord is 64-bit on 64-bit iOS platform and it is
> 32-bit
> > on 64-bit Windows platform.
>
> So what happened when they introduced Android support? Yet another
> definition or copied one of the others?
>

>From what I can see they currently support 32-bit processors for Android
devices.
(
http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/Seattle/en/Android_Devices_Supported_for_Application_Development
)
So Cardinal is still 32-bit there.  I'd think it will grow to 64-bit as
soon as arm64 is supported.

thanks,
Dmitry
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Re: [fpc-pascal] History of the Cardinal data type?

2016-03-29 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys 
On 2016-03-29 16:13, Marco van de Voort wrote:
> Cardinal is the Wirthian designation for the default unsigned integer,
> just like "integer" is for signed.

Thanks Marco, that fulfils my curiosity. :)


On a side note:
  The reason I asked this question. I'm working on code with many Record
types with fields of type Word, Smallint etc, than then some Cardinal
fields got mixed in too. I would normally use LongWord instead of
Cardinal to keep to a consistent naming convention. But from your
comments Cardinal has a long history in Pascal.

Regards,
  - Graeme -

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Re: [fpc-pascal] History of the Cardinal data type?

2016-03-29 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys 
On 2016-03-29 16:17, Dmitry Boyarintsev wrote:
> In Delphi world LongWord is 64-bit on 64-bit iOS platform and it is 32-bit
> on 64-bit Windows platform.

So what happened when they introduced Android support? Yet another
definition or copied one of the others?

Regards,
  - Graeme -

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Re: [fpc-pascal] History of the Cardinal data type?

2016-03-29 Thread Dmitry Boyarintsev 
On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 11:20 AM, Michael Van Canneyt <
mich...@freepascal.org> wrote:

>
> Which is quite confusing and a really bad decision.
> Basic integer types should not depend on the OS. On the CPU, yes.
>
> I guess they tried to make iOS platform a selling point and be more
C-like.
Just to remember that Strings are zero-based there, by default.

I believe this came with anticipation that the platform will not use (much)
of existing code base.

thanks,
Dmitry
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Re: [fpc-pascal] History of the Cardinal data type?

2016-03-29 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys 
On 2016-03-29 16:17, Dmitry Boyarintsev wrote:
> In Delphi world LongWord is 64-bit on 64-bit iOS platform and it is 32-bit
> on 64-bit Windows platform.
> 
> http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/XE8/en/What's_New#Changes_in_LongInt_and_LongWord_Size_for_64-bit_iOS_Platforms
> 

Wow, that sounds like a terrible idea. I fully agree with Michael's
statement - data type sizes should not be based on OS, but on CPU.


Regards,
  - Graeme -

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Re: [fpc-pascal] History of the Cardinal data type?

2016-03-29 Thread Michael Van Canneyt 



On Tue, 29 Mar 2016, Dmitry Boyarintsev wrote:


On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 11:06 AM, Graeme Geldenhuys <
mailingli...@geldenhuys.co.uk> wrote:


So why does the Object Pascal language have a Cardinal type? Why
couldn't LongWord be used instead?


In Delphi world LongWord is 64-bit on 64-bit iOS platform and it is 32-bit
on 64-bit Windows platform.


Which is quite confusing and a really bad decision.
Basic integer types should not depend on the OS. On the CPU, yes.

Michael.
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Re: [fpc-pascal] History of the Cardinal data type?

2016-03-29 Thread Michael Van Canneyt 



On Tue, 29 Mar 2016, Graeme Geldenhuys wrote:


Hi,

Just curious. What is the history behind the Cardinal data type. As per
the FPC documentation, it is always mapped to the LongWord type. I
presume it is the same in Delphi.


It used to be opposite, if I recall correctly.

Longword used to be Cardinal. 
I guess it was changed for Delphi compatibility.


Michael.
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Re: [fpc-pascal] History of the Cardinal data type?

2016-03-29 Thread Dmitry Boyarintsev 
On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 11:06 AM, Graeme Geldenhuys <
mailingli...@geldenhuys.co.uk> wrote:

> So why does the Object Pascal language have a Cardinal type? Why
> couldn't LongWord be used instead?
>
In Delphi world LongWord is 64-bit on 64-bit iOS platform and it is 32-bit
on 64-bit Windows platform.

http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/RADStudio/XE8/en/What's_New#Changes_in_LongInt_and_LongWord_Size_for_64-bit_iOS_Platforms

Who know what it would be for future Linux 64 target?!
Thus using LongWord as 32-bit for Delphi is quite volatile.

Cardinal is instead always 32-bit
http://docwiki.embarcadero.com/Libraries/XE8/en/System.Cardinal

thanks,
Dmitry
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Re: [fpc-pascal] History of the Cardinal data type?

2016-03-29 Thread Marco van de Voort 
In our previous episode, Graeme Geldenhuys said:
> Just curious. What is the history behind the Cardinal data type. As per
> the FPC documentation, it is always mapped to the LongWord type. I
> presume it is the same in Delphi.

Cardinal is the Wirthian designation for the default unsigned integer,
just like "integer" is for signed.

The Delphi side of things is more convoluted because pre-int64 Delphis had
31-bits Cardinals.
 
> So why does the Object Pascal language have a Cardinal type? Why
> couldn't LongWord be used instead?

See above. Variable size type vs fixed size type.
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[fpc-pascal] History of the Cardinal data type?

2016-03-29 Thread Graeme Geldenhuys 
Hi,

Just curious. What is the history behind the Cardinal data type. As per
the FPC documentation, it is always mapped to the LongWord type. I
presume it is the same in Delphi.

So why does the Object Pascal language have a Cardinal type? Why
couldn't LongWord be used instead?


Regards,
  - Graeme -

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Re: [fpc-pascal] How to crosscompile i386-linux from X86_64-win64

2016-03-29 Thread Sven Barth 
Am 29.03.2016 10:30 schrieb "Jonas Maebe" :
>
> On 29/03/16 09:58, ulrich wrote:
>>
>> what parameter(s) need to cross-compiling i386-Linux from X86_64-win64 ?
>
>
> It is not possible, because the needed 80 bits extended type is not
supported on Win64, and we don't have emulation for this type yet in the
compiler. You can follow http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=9262 if you
wish to be notified in case this ever gets implemented.
>

However on Windows there's no real penalty in using the i386-win32 release
for this instead of the x86_64-win64 one.

Regards,
Sven
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Re: [fpc-pascal] How to crosscompile i386-linux from X86_64-win64

2016-03-29 Thread Jonas Maebe 

On 29/03/16 09:58, ulrich wrote:

what parameter(s) need to cross-compiling i386-Linux from X86_64-win64 ?


It is not possible, because the needed 80 bits extended type is not 
supported on Win64, and we don't have emulation for this type yet in the 
compiler. You can follow http://bugs.freepascal.org/view.php?id=9262 if 
you wish to be notified in case this ever gets implemented.



Jonas
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[fpc-pascal] How to crosscompile i386-linux from X86_64-win64

2016-03-29 Thread ulrich 

Hi,

what parameter(s) need to cross-compiling i386-Linux from X86_64-win64 ?

When I am trying to compile from "win32" with win32 compiler:

c:\Lazarus16\fpc\3.0.0\bin\x86_64-win64\make.exe CROSSCOMPILE=1 
CPU_TARGET=i386 OS_TARGET=linux all 
CROSSBINUTILS=c:\lazarus16\fpc\3.0.0\bin\i386-linux 
BINUTILSPREFIX=i386-linux- CPU_SOURCE=i386 OS_SOURCE=win32 
FPC=c:\lazarus16\fpc\3.0.0\bin\i386-win32\fpc.exe


the result is:

make[4]: Entering directory `C:/lazarus16/fpc/3.0.0/rtl'
c:/lazarus16/fpc/3.0.0/bin/x86_64-win64/make -C win32 all
make[5]: Entering directory `C:/lazarus16/fpc/3.0.0/rtl/win32'
c:/lazarus16/fpc/3.0.0/bin/i386-win32/fpc.exe -Ur -Xs -O2 -n -Fi../inc 
-Fi../i386 -Fi../win -FE. -FUC:/lazarus16/fpc/3.0.0/rtl/units/i386-win32 
-di386 -dRELEASE -Us -Sg system.pp -Fi../win

systemh.inc(138,16) Error: Duplicate identifier "FarPointer"
systemh.inc(138,29) Error: Identifier not found "NearFsPointer"
systemh.inc(138,29) Error: Error in type definition
systemh.inc(1059,75) Error: Type "FarPointer" is not completely defined
system.pp(107,34) Fatal: There were 4 errors compiling module, stopping
Fatal: Compilation aborted
Error: c:\lazarus16\fpc\3.0.0\bin\i386-win32\ppc386.exe returned an 
error exitcode

make[5]: *** [system.ppu] Error 1
make[5]: Leaving directory `C:/lazarus16/fpc/3.0.0/rtl/win32'
make[4]: *** [win32_all] Error 2
make[4]: Leaving directory `C:/lazarus16/fpc/3.0.0/rtl'
make[3]: *** [rtl] Error 2
make[3]: Leaving directory `C:/lazarus16/fpc/3.0.0/compiler'
make[2]: *** [cycle] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory `C:/lazarus16/fpc/3.0.0/compiler'
make[1]: *** [compiler_cycle] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `C:/lazarus16/fpc/3.0.0'
make: *** [build-stamp.i386-linux] Error 2

When I am trying to compile from "win64" with win64 compiler (X86_64):

c:\lazarus16\fpc\3.0.0\bin\x86_64-win64\make.exe CROSSCOMPILE=1 
CPU_TARGET=i386 OS_TARGET=linux all 
CROSSBINUTILS=c:\lazarus16\fpc\3.0.0\bin\i386-linux 
BINUTILSPREFIX=i386-linux-


the result is:

C:/lazarus16/fpc/3.0.0/compiler/ppc.exe -Ur -Xs -O2 -n -Fui386 
-Fusystems -FuC:/lazarus16/fpc/3.0.0/rtl/units/x86_64-win64 -Fii386 -FE. 
-FUi386/units/x86_64-win64 -dRELEASE -di386 -dGDB -dBROWSERLOG 
-Fux86 -Sew pp.pas
fpcdefs.inc(259,2) Error: User defined: Cross-compiling from systems 
without support for an 80 bit extended floating point type to i386 is 
not yet supported at this time
fpcdefs.inc(259,2) Error: User defined: Cross-compiling from systems 
without support for an 80 bit extended floating point type to i386 is 
not yet supported at this time
fpcdefs.inc(259,2) Error: User defined: Cross-compiling from systems 
without support for an 80 bit extended floating point type to i386 is 
not yet supported at this time
fpcdefs.inc(259,2) Error: User defined: Cross-compiling from systems 
without support for an 80 bit extended floating point type to i386 is 
not yet supported at this time

constexp.pas(87,1) Fatal: There were 4 errors compiling module, stopping
Fatal: Compilation aborted
make[3]: *** [ppcross386.exe] Error 1
make[3]: Leaving directory `C:/lazarus16/fpc/3.0.0/compiler'
make[2]: *** [cycle] Error 2
make[2]: Leaving directory `C:/lazarus16/fpc/3.0.0/compiler'
make[1]: *** [compiler_cycle] Error 2
make[1]: Leaving directory `C:/lazarus16/fpc/3.0.0'
make: *** [build-stamp.i386-linux] Error 2


Thanks

Ulrich


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