Delphi for .NET Developer’s Guide

Variables

You might be used to declaring variables off the cuff: “I need another integer, so I’ll just declare one right here in the middle of this block of code.” This is a perfectly reasonable notion if you’re coming from another language such as C# or Visual Basic .NET. If that has been your practice, you’re going to have to retrain yourself a little in order to use variables in the Delphi language. Delphi requires you to declare all variables up front in their own section before you begin a procedure, function, or program. Perhaps you used to write freewheeling code like this:

public void foo()
{
  int x = 1;
  x++;
  int y = 2;
  float f;
  //... etc ...
}

In Delphi, any such code must be tidied up and structured a bit more to look like this:

procedure ...