Editing Delphi (software) (section)

===Characteristics===
Delphi uses a [[Strongly-typed programming language|strongly typed]] [[high-level programming language]], intended to be easy to use and originally based on the earlier Object Pascal language. [[Pascal (programming language)|Pascal]] was originally developed as a general-purpose language "suitable for expressing the fundamental constructs known at the time in a concise and logical way", and "its implementation was to be efficient and competitive with existing FORTRAN compilers"<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.math.bas.bg/bantchev/place/pascal/recollections.pdf|title=Recollections About the Development of Pascal|access-date=2016-01-12|archive-date=2016-05-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160512232508/http://www.math.bas.bg/bantchev/place/pascal/recollections.pdf|url-status=live}}</ref> but without low-level programming facilities or access to hardware. Turbo Pascal and its descendants, including Delphi, support access to hardware and low-level programming, with the facility to incorporate code written in [[assembly language]] and other languages. Delphi's [[Object-oriented programming|object-orientation]] features only class- and interface-based [[Polymorphism (computer science)|polymorphism]].<ref name="WangTan2006">{{cite book|author1=Lingfeng Wang|author2=Kay CHen Tan|title=Modern Industrial Automation Software Design|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=H93R1EE7rL8C&pg=PA113|date=20 January 2006|publisher=John Wiley & Sons|isbn=978-0-471-77627-7|pages=113–}}</ref> Metaclasses are first class objects. Objects are references to the objects (as in [[Java (programming language)|Java]]), which Delphi implicitly de-references, so there is usually no need to manually allocate memory for pointers to objects or use similar techniques that some other languages need. There are dedicated reference-counted string types, and also null-terminated strings.

Strings can be concatenated by using the '+' operator, rather than using functions. For dedicated string types, Delphi handles memory management without programmer intervention. Since Borland Developer Studio 2006, there are functions to locate [[memory leak]]s.

Delphi includes an integrated IDE. The Delphi products all ship with a run-time library (RTL) and a [[Visual Component Library]] (VCL), including most of its source code. Third-party components (sometimes with full [[source code]]) and tools to enhance the IDE or for other Delphi related development tasks are available, some free of charge. The IDE includes a GUI for localization and translation of created programs that may be deployed to a translator; there are also third-party tools with more features for this purpose. The VCL framework maintains a high level of source compatibility between versions, which simplifies updating existing source code to a newer Delphi version. Third-party libraries typically need updates from the vendor but, if source code is supplied, recompilation with the newer version may be sufficient. The VCL was an early adopter of [[dependency injection]] or [[inversion of control]]; it uses a reusable component model, extensible by the developer. With class helpers, new functionality can be introduced to core RTL and VCL classes without changing the original source code of the RTL or VCL.

The compiler is [[Optimizing compiler|optimizing]] and is a [[One-pass compiler|single-pass compiler]]. It can optionally compile to a single [[executable]] which does not require [[Dynamic-link library|DLL]]s. Delphi can also generate standard DLLs, [[ActiveX]] DLLs, [[Component Object Model|COM]] automation servers and [[Windows services]].

The Delphi IDEs since Delphi 2005 increasingly support [[refactoring]] features such as method extraction and the possibility to create [[Unified Modeling Language|UML]] models from the source code or to modify the source through changes made in the model.

Delphi has communities on the [[World Wide Web|web]], where also its employees actively participate. And Delphi is using in collaboration with FireDAC components.