WriteStr
The procedure writeStr formats arguments using the same syntax as write/writeLn, but the destination is a string variable.
It is an extended Pascal extension, but the FPC’s default RTL supports this procedure regardless of the current compiler compatibility mode, not just {$mode extendedPascal}.
signature
WriteStr needs at least two arguments.
The first parameter has to be a string-assignment-compatible variable, or, if allowed, a proper “writable constant”.
The second and following arguments have the same type requirements and format specification syntax as for write/writeLn.
behavior
WriteStr behaves like write/writeLn, but does not need to open an external file for processing.
If the destination parameter, the first argument, has a smaller capacity than the concatenated formatted strings, the result is clipped to the left, i. e. only the first x characters will be stored.
Note: As an extension, the FPC allows referencing the destination variable as a source variable. The extended Pascal states “It shall be an error if any of the write-parameters accesses the referenced string-variable.” The FPC ignores this requirement and does not yield an error.application
WriteStr is the go-to method of standard, yet simple formatting tasks.
A few examples are:
writeStr(myString, someInteger:1); is equivalent to myString := intToStr(someInteger); (or myString := someInteger.toString();), but the latter requires the sysUtils unit.
Note, the minimum width specifier :1 is optional in non-ISO-compliant compiler modes.
In non-ISO-compliant modes writeStr(tableCell, finding:24); is equivalent to tableCell := padLeft(finding, 24); (or tableCell := finding.padLeft(24); if finding is an ANSI string), but padLeft requires the strUtils unit.
For reference, in ISO-compliant modes writeStr(tableCell, caption:10); is equivalent to the more complicated tableCell := caption.subString(0, 10).padLeft(10);.
