Helper

As stated in an article about Object Pascal,

Helpers are a way to extend a class without using inheritance, which is also useful for records that do not allow inheritance at all.

FastPlaz provides several helpers that make writing Pascal programs easier. Using helpers makes your code easy to read, even close to everyday human language.

Unit	Description
string_helper	Helper for the AnsiString/String data type
datetime_helper	Helper for the TDateTime data type
integer_helper	Helper for the Integer data type
array_helper	Helper for the TStringArray data type
verbal_expressions_lib	Verbal Expression

Some of the functions in these helpers are already covered by fpc 3.2.0.

string_helper

Given these variables:

d : TDateTime;
s : String;
i : integer;

This helper can do many things.

d := s.AsDateTime; //convert date string to datetime
i := s.AsInteger; //convert string to integer

// if s contains the word 'cari'
if s.Has('cari') then begin ... end;

// if s is a url/email
if s.IsEmail then ...
if s.IsURL then ...

s := s.UrlEncode;
s := s.Encode64;
s := s.Decode64;

s := 'saya makan nasi';
s := s.cut('saya','nasi').trim;
// s contains 'makan'

s.SaveToFile('/path/filename');

More examples are in the repository documentation.

For the full list, see the unit file string_helper.

datetime_helper

Given these variables:

d : TDateTime;
s : String;

This helper can do many things.

d := d.FromString( '17-08-1945 09:59:00');
s := d.Format( 'yyyy-mm-dd HH:nn:ss');
s := d.AsString;

if d.IsAM then begin ... end;
if d.IsPM then begin ... end;
if d.IsToday then begin ... end;

if Tomorrow.IsSaturday then begin ... end;
if d.HourOf = 9 then ....

d := d.IncMinute(1);

if d.YearsDiff( Now) > 40 then begin ... end;

s := d.HumanReadable;
// 'more than 73 years ago'

// convert date to unixtime
i := d.AsUnixTime;

More examples are in the repository documentation.

For the full list, see the unit file datetime_helper.

integer_helper

var
  i: integer;

// if i is between 300 and 400
if i.InRange( 300, 400) then ...

// convert unixtime to tdatetime
d := i.AsDateTime;

For the full list, see the unit file integer_helper.

array_helper

// check whether the string 'zero' is in the array
const
  NUMBER_LIST: array[0..5] of string = ('zero', 'one', 'two', 'three', 'four', 'five');
var
  i: integer;
  whereAsArray: TStringArray;

.
.
if 'zero' in NUMBER_LIST then
begin
  //
end;

// add a string to an array of string
whereAsArray.Add('isi string');

// get the length/number of items in the array
i := whereAsArray.Count;

For the full list, see the unit file array_helpers.

Verbal Expression

Verbal Expression is a FastPlaz library that helps construct difficult regular expressions.

VE := TVerbalExpressions.Create;
VE.StartOfLine()
  .Has('http')
  .Maybe('s')
  .Has('://')
  .Maybe('www.')
  .AnythingBut(' ')
  .EndOfLine(false);

if VE.IsMatch('https://fastplaz.com') then
begin
  // your code
end;


// expression: ^(http)(s)?(:\/\/)(www\.)?([^ ]*)

This code produces the regex: ^(http)(s)?(:\/\/)(www\.)?([^ ]*).

Replace String

varString := 'Replace bird with a duck';
VE.Find('bird');
varString := VE.Replace(varString, 'duck');

or

varString := VE.Find('red').Replace('We have a red house', 'blue');

Methods list

Name	Description	Usage
Add	add values to the expression	Add('abc')
startOfLine	mark expression with ^	startOfLine(false)
endoOfLine	mark the expression with $	endOfLine()
has	add a string to the expression	has('foo')
find	alias for has	find('foo')
maybe	define a string that might appear once or not	maybe('.com')
anything	accept any string	anything()
anythingBut	accept any string but the specified char	anythingBut(',')
something	accept any non-empty string	something()
somethingBut	anything non-empty except for these chars	somethingBut('a')
LineBreak	match \r \n	lineBreak()
br	shorthand for lineBreak	br()
tab	match tabs \t	tab()
word	match \w+	word()
anyOf	any of the listed chars	anyOf('abc')
any	shorthand for anyOf	any('abc')
range	adds a range to the expression	range(a,z,0,9)

Note

Inspiration from VerbalExpressions