Delphi XE - should I use String or AnsiString?

Question

I finally upgraded to Delphi XE. I have a library of units where I use strings to store plain ANSI characters (chars between A and U). I am 101% sure that I will never ever use UNICODE characters in those places.

I want to convert all other libraries to Unicode, but for this specific library I think it will be better to stick with ANSI. The advantage is the memory requirement as in some cases I load very large TXT files (containing ONLY Ansi characters). The disadvantage might be that I have to do lots and lots of typecasts when I make those libraries to interact with normal (unicode) libraries.

There are some general guidelines to show when is good to convert to Unicode and when to stick with Ansi?

Answer 1

The problem with general guidelines is that something like this can be very specific to a person's situation. Your example here is one of those.

However, for people Googling and arriving here, some general guidelines are:

• Yes, convert to Unicode. Don't try to keep an old app fully using AnsiStrings. The reason is that the whole VCL is Unicode, and you shouldn't try to mix the two, because you will convert every time you assign a Unicode string to an ANSI string, and that is a lossy conversion. Trying to keep the old way because it's less work (or some similar reason) will cause you pain; just embrace the new string type, convert, and go with it.

• Instead of randomly mixing the two, explicitly perform any conversions you need to, once - for example, if you're loading data from an old version of your program you know it will be ANSI, so read it into a Unicode string there, and that's it. Ever after, it will be Unicode.

• You should not need to change the type of your string variables - string pre-D2009 is ANSI, and in D2009 and alter is Unicode. Instead, follow compiler warnings and watch which string methods you use - some still take an AnsiString parameter and I find it all confusing. The compiler will tell you.

• If you use strings to hold bytes (in other words, using them as an array of bytes because a character was a byte) switch to TBytes.

• You may encounter specific problems for things like encryption (strings are no longer byte/characters, so 'character' for 'character' you may get different output); reading text files (use the stream classes and TEncoding); and, frankly, miscellaneous stuff. Search here on SO, most things have been asked before.

Commenters, please add more suggestions... I mostly use C++Builder, not Delphi, and there are probably quite a few specific things for Delphi I don't know about.

Now for your specific question: should you convert this library?

If:

• The values between A and U are truly only ever in this range, and
• These values represent characters (A really is A, not byte value 65 - if so, use TBytes), and
• You load large text files and memory is a problem

then not converting to Unicode, and instead switching your strings to AnsiStrings, makes sense.

Be aware that:

• There is an overhead every time you convert from ANSI to Unicode
• You could use UTF8String, which is a specific type of AnsiString that will not be lossy when converted, and will still store most text (Roman characters) in a single byte
• Changing all the instances of string to AnsiString could be a bit of work, and you will need to check all the methods called with them to see if too many implicit conversions are being performed (for performance), etc
• You may need to change the outer layer of your library to use Unicode so that conversion code or ANSI/Unicode compiler warnings are not visible to users of your library
• If you convert to Unicode, sets of characters (can't remember the syntax, maybe if 'S' in MySet?) won't work. From your description of characters A to U, I could guess you would like to use this syntax.

My recommendation? Personally, the only reason I would do this from the information you've given is the memory use, and possibly performance depending on what you're doing with this huge amount of A..Us. If that truly is significant, it's both the driver and the constraint, and you should convert to ANSI.

Answer 2

You should be able to wrap up the conversion at the interface between this unit and its clients. Use AnsiString internally and string everywhere else and you should be fine.