Delphi 5 - StrToFloat results differntly on WinXP and Win2K

Question

I have this weird problem that a convert of a string on my machine and a production server gets different results eg:

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
var
   s1: string;
   f1: double;
begin
   s1 := '1.234';
   f1 := StrToFloat(s1); 
end;

procedure TForm1.Button2Click(Sender: TObject);
var
   s2: string;
   f2: double;
begin
   s2 := '1,234';
   f2 := StrToFloat(s2); 
end;

Button1Click results on my WinXP machine in an '1.234' is not a valid floating point value whereas on the Win2K machine this works just fine.

Button2Click on the other end behaves on my WinXP but does result in an '1,234' is not a valid floating point value error.

Both machines have regional settings set to "German(Austria)" - any ideas as to why this is happening or at least why the regional-settings dialog does show a different decimalseparator character than the Delphi "DecimalSeparator" and "GetLocaleChar(GetThreadLocale, LOCALE_SDECIMAL, '.')?

Regards, Reinhard

Answer 1

the DecimalSeparator variable stores the value of the Windows decimal separator as defined in the regional settings. If a decimal point appears in the String to convert with the StrToFloat function then it must match with the current DecimalSeparator value. I believe that although the regional settings match the decimal separator must be different in both systems. you can check with this code the values set in both systems.

uses
Windows;

procedure TForm1.Button3Click(Sender: TObject);
Var
StrDummy : string;
begin
 StrDummy:='Decimal Separator in Windows '+GetLocaleChar(GetThreadLocale, LOCALE_SDECIMAL, '.')+#13#10+
           'Decimal Separator in Delphi  '+DecimalSeparator;
 ShowMessage(StrDummy);

end;