Amiga ISO Collection/AmigaUtilCD2.iso/Programming/Pascal/HISOFTPASCAL2,0-1.DMS/in.adf/ReadMe

Text File | 1993-03-11 | 9.7 KB | 270 lines

    HighSpeed Pascal 1.10
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    26th May 1992
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Welcome to HighSpeed Pascal.  This file is intended to
supplement the manual, giving you the latest details on
your version of HighSpeed Pascal.

We regret that we are no longer able to supply the Amiga
speech libraries with our products.  If you have either
Workbench 1.3 or 2.0 and wish to use these facilities, you
must transfer the narrator.device, translator.library and
speak-handler files from your original Workbench disks.

A complete set of Pascal 'units' for programming Release 2
of the operating system are now supplied on a fourth disk.
Installation details plus important information concerning
both these and the 1.3 units can be found in the Units Disk
ReadMe file.


    Installation
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When using Workbench to back up your disks, rename each one
afterwards to remove the words 'copy of '.  Please note
that Program Disk 2.0 is a FastFileSystem disk and is
unreadable from Workbench 1.3.

For memory reasons, both Program Disks are configured to
use the Workbench 1.3 units by default.  Details of how to
switch over to the new 2.0 units is in the Units Disk
ReadMe file.  Units Disk 2 is only required if you use
these units.

Since Pascal.lib is located on the Units Disk, you may see
a 'volume not mounted' requester the first time you compile
or run a program (such as the Quick Tutorial in the
manual).  Simply insert the requested disk in any drive to
continue.  Hard disk users should follow the installation
procedure given in the manual.

You may wish to update the Default Tools of icons in
Prefs/Env-Archive (using Info from Workbench) to include
the correct volume names for your system.


    Updating 1.00
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If you are upgrading from version 1.00, it is simplest to
just re-install the package.  For floppy disk users this is
a matter of copying your source files from the old disks to
a backup of the 1.10 disks.

Hard disk users are advised to rename their old HSPascal
drawer before installing the new version.  Source files,
preferences etc. can then be moved from the old drawer into
the new one.  It is often convenient to keep such files in
a separate 'Programs' drawer.

Finally, only delete the old HighSpeed Pascal drawer once
you are certain that all useful files have been transferred
(possibly allowing several days to avoid unnecessary
grief!).


    Floating Point Support
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Any Pascal program including floating point calculations
will automatically take advantage of a 68881/2 maths
coprocessor if present.

The Real type now defaults to Extended precision for
maximum speed and accuracy, although this can be changed if
required.  Extended now uses 12 bytes and IS compatible
with the 68881/2 format (contrary to page 10 and 260-261 of
the Technical Reference Manual).


    Miscellaneous
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Range and Stack Checking also give automatic Ctrl-E break
checking which may be used to stop a runaway program.  This
facility can be controlled from the program via the boolean
System variable, BreakOn.

Although not mentioned in the manual, the inline assembler
accepts the syntax <recordtype>.<fieldname> which gives the
byte offset to any field within a record.  This permits
symbolic names to be used instead of constant values, e.g:

    move.w    tRectangle.MinX(a0),d0

The XASSEMBLER keyword may be used instead of ASSEMBLER to
suppress the LINK and UNLK A6 instructions which are
normally generated.  However, such routines cannot refer to
parameters by name or @result although it can use constant
offsets into the stack instead.  For this reason XASSEMBLER
is not recommended except for short or parameterless
procedures.

Hexadecimal constants now behave the same as decimal
constants to be compatible with Turbo Pascal.  Previously,
$8000 would be sign extended to $FFFF8000.

The CRT unit now contains the TextCursor procedure which
takes a single boolean value and enables or disables the
output window cursor.  Note that this and other effects can
be achieved by writing ANSI-style escape sequences.

Printer output is done through the 'lst' file, available
when you 'use' the Printer unit.  WriteLn(lst, 'Hello'),
for example, will write to the printer instead of the
screen.  Note that only standard Amiga escape sequences
should be used to control printing and not your printer's
own escape codes.  For a printout of all program output,
try using the method described below under CLI vs Workbench.

The System unit variable ThisTask points to the program's
Process structure and may be cast to a pTask or pProcess as
required.


    Editor
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When starting HSPascal from a CLI, an empty window is now
created for any named file which is not found.  The
Workbench 2 version also recognises AmigaDOS patterns such
as "#?.pas" which would open all the files ending in ".pas".

There are now two Open commands on the Project menu, 'Open'
(Amiga-L) and 'Open New' (Amiga-O) which is equivalent to
the Open command described on page 50 of the User Manual.
The 'Close' command (Amiga-K) has moved to the Window menu
and now only closes the current window.  Some other Window
menu commands now have shortened names.

'Open' is useful when you wish to open a file without
having it create an extra window like Open New does.
Instead, Open replaces the current project with the
selected file, prompting first if the project has been
modified.


A number of new settings have been added.  A flashing
cursor is optional and the Shift-Backspace command (delete
to start of line) may be disabled.

'Save Before Run' will automatically save any modified
projects when you select Run or Debug.  This safeguards you
in case your program crashes and ensures that the correct
source files are used for debugging.  Selecting 'Warn'
produces a requester before saving whilst 'Always' saves
all changes without prompting.

'Program Window' lets you choose if a window is produced
when you Run or Debug and whether it waits for a keypress
before closing.  With Workbench 2 the window only appears
if used and is closed by Ctrl-\.

Two settings are only accessible by manually editing
settings files: the clipboard unit number (CLIP=<n>) and
the program window size (OUTPUTWIN=<x>,<y>,<w>,<h>).


Page 41 of the User Manual shows the split and join line
keyboard shortcuts the wrong way round.  The end of the
first paragraph on page 49 should say LEFT Amiga key.
Additional keyboard shortcuts to pages 63-65 are:

    Right Amiga-I        Paste File
    Right Amiga-K        Close Window
    Right Amiga-L        Open (see above)
    Ctrl-K            Delete to End of Line
    Shift-Alt-cursor key    Scroll window

Use Esc to close the Find requester if you wish to retain
its contents.  To enter Find text without an automatic Find
Next, hold down Ctrl, Shift or Alt when pressing Return
(this also works with other editor text gadgets).

The cursor line and column numbers appear in the About
requester (accessed via the Help key).


    File Requesters
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Although the ARP file requester used by the 1.3 editor has
an internal limit of 32 characters for directory names, it
is possible to overcome this with HSPascal.  To specify a
long pathname such as "HardDisk:HSPascal/programs/graphics/
drawing.pas" for example, you can select "HardDisk:
HSPascal/programs" as the Drawer and then type "graphics/
drawing.pas" into the File gadget.

Some users may wish to use a program which replaces
standard requesters with its own, such as the public domain
ReqTools library.

Pascal units for programming both ARP and ReqTools can be
found in the Extras drawer of the Units Disk along with the
FileRequest.pas example program.  This example also
requires the ASL unit included on Units Disk 2.


    CLI vs Workbench
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Unfortunately, page 278 of the Technical Reference Manual
was included in error.  The correct information is as
follows:

Programs compiled with HighSpeed Pascal can be used from
both command line and Workbench environments.  From a CLI
or Shell, the current window is used for text input and
output unless redirected with < or >.  To redirect output
to the printer, for example, use "progname >PRT:".  This
can also be used with Execute on the Program menu if you
first compile your program to disk.

Command line arguments are accessed via the DOS unit's
ParamCount and ParamStr functions.  CmdLinePtr.Len and
CmdLinePtr.Ptr in System unit refer to the original program
command line.


When a program is run from Workbench by double-clicking its
icon, all selected icons are passed as arguments.
ParamCount gives the number of these whilst ParamStr
returns their full pathnames.  You may use the Icon unit to
access the icons and attached tooltypes if required.

An output window is opened automatically using the C string
pointed to by WBWindowName in the System unit.  The
WBenchMsg pointer, which is NIL when run from a CLI, points
to the WBStartup message (defined in the Workbench unit).
WBExitDelay is the number of milliseconds before the output
window disappears after the program has finished.  It
defaults to 2000, i.e. 2 seconds.


    Debugging
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For Line Number Debugging to function, the program or unit
name present in the source MUST match the actual file name.
For example, the source file "example1.pas" should start
with "program example1".  For this reason, spaces in file
names are not recommended.

To activate a MonAm window, press Right Amiga and the
window number.  This will adjust the display to reveal the
window if it is currently hidden, then activate it.

Note that MonAm is not 'pure' for use with the AmigaDOS
RESIDENT command.


If you have any comments, suggestions or problems with this
or any HiSoft product, please contact us at:

    HiSoft
    The Old School
    Greenfield
    Bedford
    MK45 5DE
    U.K.

    Tel: [phone]
    Fax: [phone]