Delphi Basics : setstring command

DelphiBasics

setstring
Procedure

Copies characters from a buffer into a string

System unit

procedure setstring(var TargetString string; BufferPointer PChar; Length Integer);

Description

The SetString procedure sets the length of TargetString to Length before copying that number of characters from the buffer referenced by BufferPointer.

The length is only set when the string is not a ShortString. In fact, the string is reallocated - the TargetString reference is then set to point to this new string.

Related commands

FillChar		Fills out a section of storage with a fill character or byte value
SetLength		Changes the size of a string, or the size(s) of an array
StringOfChar		Creates a string with one character repeated many times

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Example code : A simple example

var
  target : string;
  source : array[1..5] of Char;
  srcPtr : PChar;
  i      : Integer;

begin
  // Fill out the character array
  for i := 1 to 5 do
    source[i] := Chr(i+64);

  // Copy these characters to a string
  srcPtr := Addr(source);
  SetString(target, srcPtr, 5);

  // Show what we have got
  ShowMessage('target now = '+target);
end;

Show full unit code

target now = ABCDE