Statements & Operators

DelphiScript Statements

A statement in DelphiScript is considered 'simple' when it does not contain any other statements. Examples of simple statements are assignment statements and procedure calls.

Simple statements:

X := Y + 10; // assignment

ShowMessage('Hello World!'); // procedure call

A compound statement consists of multiple statements.

Compound statements:

Begin
  If A > B Then ShowMessage('A is bigger');
  Else ShowMessage('B is bigger');
  A := 0;
  B := 0;
End;

Conditional Statements

DelphiScript has control statements that affect the flow of execution within a script. The most common control statement is the If..Then conditional statement.

If Then Statement

The If..Then statement is used for conditional control. The syntax is:

If Condition Then
  Begin
  // code here
  End
Else
  Begin
  // code here
  End;

Case Of Statement

To avoid a complex set of If statements, these can often be replaced with Case statements. A case statement in an expression is used to select a value, a list of possible values, or a range of values.

Any types can be used in a Case statement because DelphiScript is an untyped language. Case statements can have an Else statement that is executed if none of the labels correspond to the value of the selector (within the Case Of condition).

Example 1:

Case Char of
  '+' : Text := 'Plus sign';
  '-' : Text := 'Minus sign';
  '*', '/': Text := 'Multiplication or division';
  '0'..'9': Text := 'Number';
  'a'..'z': Text := 'Lowercase character';
  'A'..'Z': Text := 'Uppercase character';
else
  Text := 'Unknown character';
End;

Example 2:

Case UserName of
  'Jack', 'Joe' : IsAdministrator := true;
  'Fred' : IsAdministrator := false;
else
  Raise('Unknown User');
End;

With Statement

The With statement is a DelphiScript shorthand. When referring to a record type variable (or an object), a 'with' statement can be used instead of repeating its name each time.

Normal version:

Form.Canvas.Pen.Width := 2;
Form.Canvas.Pen.Color := clSilver;

Version using With:

With Form.Canvas.Pen do
Begin
  Width := 2;
  Color := clSilver;
End;

For To Do Loop

The For..To..Do statement provides a method for repeatedly looping through a block of code (one or more lines of code). The basic syntax is:

For counter := start To end Do
Begin
  // code here
End;

For loops are often used to initialize an array. The counter direction in a For..To..Do loop can be controlled by alternatively using the DownTo keyword to decrement the loop. DelphiScript provides the Break/Exit statement to exit a For..To..Do loop prematurely.

Repeat Until Loop

The Repeat statement is executed repeatedly until the Boolean expression is true. The Repeat statement is always executed at least once.

Example:

Repeat
  Write('Enter a value (0..9): ');
  ShowMessage(IntToStr(I));
Until (I >= 0) and (I <= 9);

While Do Loop

A While statement is similar to a Repeat statement except that the control condition is evaluated before the first execution of the statement sequence. Hence, if the condition is false, the statement sequence is never executed.

Example:

Randomize;
I := 0;
While I < 1000 do
Begin
  I := I + Random (100);
  Add ('Random Number: ' + IntToStr (I));
End;

Continue Statement

The Continue statement jumps over the body of a loop, similar to the Goto statement. The continue statement causes the executing script to pass to the next iteration in the current For, While or Repeat loop.

Example:

var
  F: File;
  i: Integer;
Begin
  For i := 0 to (FileListBox1.Items.Count - 1) do
  Begin
    Try
    If FileListBox1.Selected[i] Then
    Begin
      If not FileExists(FileListBox1.Items.Strings[i]) then
      Begin
        MessageDlg('File: ' + FileListBox1.Items.Strings[i] + 'not found', mtError, [mbOk], 0);
        Continue;
      End;
      AssignFile(F, FileListBox1.Items.Strings[i]);
      Reset(F, 1);
      ListBox1.Items.Add(IntToStr(FileSize(F)));
      CloseFile(F);
    End;
    Finally
      { do something here }
    End;
  End;
End;

Goto Label Statement

The Goto statement has the form Goto label which transfers the script execution to the statement marked by the specified label. To mark a statement, the label must be declared first and then the target statement preceded with the label and a colon: label: statement

A Label can be any valid identifier. The Label declaration and Goto statement must belong to the same code block within a script. Therefore it's not possible to jump into, or out of, a procedure or function.

Example:

Label StartHere;
  // code
StartHere: Beep;
Goto StartHere;

Exit Statement

The Exit statement immediately returns from a function or procedure. If you call Exit from within a Try..Finally block, the Finally part gets executed before the subroutine returns. If the Exit procedure is called from within the main body of the script, then execution of the script will terminate.

Example:

Begin
  Server := SchServer;
  If Server = Nil Then
  Begin
    ShowError('No SchServer started');
    Exit;
End;

Break Statement

The Break statement causes the executing script to exit out of the current For, While or Repeat loop. Script execution continues from the subsequent executable line after the current loop.

Example:

Var
  S: string;
Begin
  While True do
  Begin
    ReadLn(S);
    Try
      if S = '' then Break;
      WriteLn(S);
    Finally
      { do something for all cases }
    End;
  End;
End;

DelphiScript Expression Operators

In general, an expression is a valid combination of constants, variables, literal values, operators, and function results. Expressions are used to determine the value to assign to a variable, to compute the parameter of a function or to test for a condition. Expressions can include function calls.

DelphiScript has a number of logical, arithmetic, Boolean and relational operators. These operators are grouped by the order of precedence (see below), which is different to the precedence orders used by Basic, C, etc. For example, the AND and OR operators have precedence compared to the relational one.

If you write a<b and c<d, DelphiScript will do the AND operation first, resulting in an error. To prevent this problem and define the priority, each < expression needs to be enclosed in parentheses: (a<b) and (c<d);

The supported DelphiScript operators listed below are shown by their order of precedence.

Operators Grouped by Precedence

Note that Unary operators have the highest precedence.

Multiplicative and Bitwise Operators

Additive Operators

Relational and Comparison Operators (lowest precedence)

Also note that the ^ and @ operators are not supported by DelphiScript.