initializing char array with space(#32) not null(#0)

Question

i use delphi 2010. i need to fill the char array with spaces not nulls. i used following code which doesn't work.

procedure TForm1.FormCreate(Sender: TObject);
var
  aCharArray: array[0..9] of Char;
begin
  FillChar(aCharArray, sizeof(aCharArray), #32); // doesn't work
  FillChar(aCharArray, sizeof(aCharArray), ' '); // doesn't work

  Caption := aCharArray;
end;

the caption is printed with strange crosses. in an array of ansichar it works well.

please let me know the reason and the solution.

thanks.

Answer 1

FillChar is mis-named in Unicode Delphi. It should really be named FillAnsiChar. So you are filling the string with UTF-16 characters having ordinal value $2020, aka U+2020 (DAGGER), †.

Instead you should use StringOfChar:

Caption := StringOfChar(' ', 10);