Exploring FPC/Lazarus units and packages

[MarkMLl]

Good. I'll wait for the examples then. Please try to use the CHMs

I don't have the CHMs, presumably because I always build FPC myself (hence the point elsewhere about a wrapper script).

Can they be downloaded from somewhere?

And more to the point, is the full set of historic versions available?

MarkMLl

[Curt Carpenter]

This is not a moan or a complaiint!  It's sort of a heartbreaker though, and a suggestion.

I spent some time yesterday trying to understand my own problems with using the FPC/Lazarus docs, and asking myself what I'd point someone new to FPC/Lazarus toward if (s)he had just started using the system and was trying to get familiar with the very rich body of documentation and other information that's available on-line.

The best "starting point" I found in poking around was

https://wiki.freepascal.org/Lazarus_Documentation#Free_Pascal_Compiler_Documentation

There is a lot of terrific information here (a little overwhelming, in fact! Need a "guide to the guide to the guide!)  But thinking about my new user again and consistent with this thread, I thought I'd encourage him to scroll down to "Free Pascal Compiler Documentation" and at least get aware of the content of the material linked to there for a start.   In particular taking a look in  "Reference guide to the system unit" and the "Run-Time Library reference manual." 

I clicked on the first link and got this

An error has been encountered in accessing this page.

1. Server: lazarus-ccr.sourceforge.io
2. URL path: /fpcdoc/ref/ref.html
3. Error notes: NONE
4. Error type: 404
5. Request method: GET
6. Request query string: NONE
7. Time: 2024-07-16 15:30:05 UTC (1721143805)

Reporting this problem: The problem you have encountered is with a project web site hosted by SourceForge.net. This issue should be reported to the SourceForge.net-hosted project (not to SourceForge.net).

...

The same message appears if I try the link to the RTL manual, but I know it's there on-line in it's latest version at https://www.freepascal.org/docs-html/current/.

I also noticed that all of the .PDF docs I have on my computer are dated 2017 while the current on-line manuals are dated 2021 -- my problem of course and nothing to do with FPC/Lazarus.

Not sure what the moral of this story is.   Maybe though, it would be helpful to put a new topic in the "Programming" section of the forum here, named something like "Explore the Documentation" (rather than RTFM, which shows up here, sadly, from time to time) where the state of all the docs could be highlighted and addressed.  The docs are as important as the code, right?

[MarkMLl]

Link you posted is dud, please check your transcription (remember that you can edit a message to fix that sort of thing for the record).

I also noticed that all of the .PDF docs I have on my computer are dated 2017 while the current on-line manuals are dated 2021 -- my problem of course and nothing to do with FPC/Lazarus.

That's an easy one: the URLs to get them relied on FTP. In around 2018/2019 browsers started dropping FTP support, and it was around five years before... well, /somebody/ did something about it. I raised it repeatedly, and was typically told "Well, the user ought to find a browser that supports FTP then".

MarkMLl

[dsiders]

Good. I'll wait for the examples then. Please try to use the CHMs

I don't have the CHMs, presumably because I always build FPC myself (hence the point elsewhere about a wrapper script).

Can they be downloaded from somewhere?

And more to the point, is the full set of historic versions available?

Download links for all formats and versions:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/freepascal/files/Documentation/3.2.2/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/freepascal/files/Documentation/

[Thaddy]

I'd recommend for linux advanced fpc users to simply compile the latest docs from time to time.
There are good instructions.
Compiling the docs from Windows is not possible.(well, it is, but with an exotic toolchain almost all compiled from source)

[Curt Carpenter]

Link you posted is dud, please check your transcription (remember that you can edit a message to fix that sort of thing for the record).

Sorry, missed a "/" in the link.  Think it's fixed now.

75% of it or more of the internet is magic to me.  Last time I used FTP was probably early 90's?

[MarkMLl]

Download links for all formats and versions:

https://sourceforge.net/projects/freepascal/files/Documentation/3.2.2/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/freepascal/files/Documentation/

Thanks, I'll investigate.

I don't promise I'll be able to do much even as a POC: from my POV the window of opportunity closed years ago. Also (noting Marco's stricture that I use the CHMs) a lot depends on wjat utilities etc. I can find to process the various formats.

MarkMLl

[Curt Carpenter]

https://sourceforge.net/projects/freepascal/files/Documentation/3.2.2/
https://sourceforge.net/projects/freepascal/files/Documentation/

Thanks!  Two minutes to update my 2017 docs to 2021 once the link was in hand!

[dsiders]

75% of it or more of the internet is magic to me.

66% of the internet operates due to voodoo, bubblegum and baling wire.

[Curt Carpenter]

Not to mention magic numbers 

[PascalDragon]

The best "starting point" I found in poking around was

https://wiki.freepascal.org/Lazarus_Documentation#Free_Pascal_Compiler_Documentation

There is a lot of terrific information here (a little overwhelming, in fact! Need a "guide to the guide to the guide!)  But thinking about my new user again and consistent with this thread, I thought I'd encourage him to scroll down to "Free Pascal Compiler Documentation" and at least get aware of the content of the material linked to there for a start.   In particular taking a look in  "Reference guide to the system unit" and the "Run-Time Library reference manual."

The official location of the FPC documentation is here.

[Curt Carpenter]

The official location of the FPC documentation is here.

I appreciate the link and have bookmarked it.   There are clearly multiple paths into the documentation:

http://downloads.freepascal.org/fpc/docs-pdf/user.pdf
https://sourceforge.net/projects/freepascal/files/Documentation/3.2.2/

(and others?) for example, and perhaps that's a part of the problem although I'm sure they all lead to the same body of work.   

There's no question that all the information is there:  I keep stumbling on more  that is new to me even after all these years.  Like
"How to use C code in Free Pascal projects by G. Marcou, E. Engler, A. Varnek" which I just came across in looking at the link you provided.  The problem isn't a lack of information -- it's knowing how to find it.  But that's a classic problem in many fields.

Thanks again.
 

I'm guessing that most new users come to FPC indrectly via Lazarus (and via Delphi for geezers like me), and that was the motivation for the link I suggested. 

[MarkMLl]

The official location of the FPC documentation is here.

You haven't read the thread, have you?

That exhibits /precisely/ the crap indexing problems that I'm highlighting.

MarkMLl

[silvercoder70]

I am going to go back to when I was studying at Uni to tell a story... I was doing a subject on Real Time OSs and the language that was used in this subject was Oberon. We were not taught how to use the language in any way, and were expected to work that part out ourselves. And we got our first assignment in the 1st of 2nd week of the semester. This meant we had to explore the language ourselves. Good or bad? And perhaps the funny bit for everyone here is this was around the time the Internet was just taking off in the 90s. In a sense we were forced (?) to explore the language ourselves.

Now I know today we might have the luxury of that time to explore the language.

And I know that FPC also uses include type files that can make things harder to find.

I am all for quality documentation. I remember getting Turbo/Borland C manuals that described each function and the header needed to use. And systems have become more complex since those days.

So if I am looking for something in FPC now it's -> google > documentation referenced in result (and perhaps guess as to the unit needed to include)

So what's missing documentation wise ...

• information on documentation web pages is not exactly intuitive navigation wise. I could talk forever about this!
• the lack of a search function within the site?

[li]based on the above, harder to work out what is really missing
[/li][/list]

The documentation that is there is helpful and I'm grateful for it being there.  At the same time, on reading it (web page) I feel like I'm back in the 90s even though this iteration of the language is modern.

[Curt Carpenter]

There are clearly multiple paths into the documentation:

http://downloads.freepascal.org/fpc/docs-pdf/user.pdf
https://sourceforge.net/projects/freepascal/files/Documentation/3.2.2/

For the record should anyone stumble across this:  include also

https://gitlab.com/freepascal.org/fpc/documentation.git

As a source of useful documentation (thanks to dsiders for the link).