Fun with codepages, unicode and encoding

...or how to survive in the encoding jungle, with some helpful tools.

I have several times stumble into encoding issues between legacy applications and modern "Unicode" capable ones.

In the following I will try to explain the basics in a simple way - and also supply the source and binary (if there are anyone out there that needs the utility - but don't need a compiler) for a small utility that takes a file containing Unicode characters and encodes it into a given code page. I was a bit surprised that I wasn't able to find such a utility at that time - so I did one to solve the problem.

XE7 - already new version of Delphi - again!!

...or why you should consider getting a software assurance license, use the recharge option or just try out the newer versions of Delphi.

This small post is just a list of reasons why you might consider to keep your RAD Studio/Delphi/C++Builder license up-to-date. So no technical topic - just a bit of reasoning and my own opinions - and unless you chose to use the "Delphi Ad" in the top right corner of this page - I have no economical interest in you keeping your licenses up-to-date. :-)

Delphi has at a point in time been rumored dead - and many abandoned ship to, at that time, more popular languages - but I guess perseverance will prevail.

But popular doesn't mean better or worse - I am more the "I know what I like" type - to use the title of an old Genesis song. Having used a variety of programming languages and IDEs - the Delphi dialect and IDE is still after almost 20 years, my favorite choice. And here is some reasons why: