Convert string to PAnsiChar in Delphi 2009

Question

I'm converting my applications to Delphi 2009 and faced an intriguing issue with some calls that need to convert a string (wide) to AnsiString.

Here's an example to demonstrate the issue I'm having:

var   s: PAnsiChar;  ...  s := PAnsiChar(Application.ExeName); 

With Delphi 2007 and previous versions, s := PChar(Application.ExeName) would return the application exe path.

with Delphi 2009, s := PAnsiChar(Application.ExeName) returns only 'E'.

My guess is that's because I'm converting a unicode string to an ansi string but how can I convert it so that a PAnsiChar gets the full string?

Answer 1

I have no Delphi 2009 here, so I can't check it. But maybe you have to try:

s := PAnsiChar(AnsiString(Application.ExeName)); 

As gabr already pointed, this is not a very good practice, and you will only use it if you are 100% sure. The string only contains characters that have a direct mapping to the ANSI range.

That's why you should get a warning because you are converting Unicode to ANSI.