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Commons

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Cross-cutting utilities for DAFce applications — smart pointers, cancellation tokens, async futures, RTTI helpers, enumerable abstractions, arrays and more. This is the floor every other DAF package stands on.

Delphi 12+ License

Modules at a glance

Unit Highlights
Daf.MemUtils ARC<T> smart pointer (reference to function: T), TFinalizer, TPurgatory
Daf.Threading ICancellationToken, ICancellationTokenSource (factory: CreateCancellationTokenSource), TShutdownHook
Daf.Enumerable ToIEnumerable<T> adapter, IInterfaceList<T>, TInterfaceList<T>, TDeferredEnumerable<T> / TGeneratorEnumerator<T> (the deferred sequence)
Daf.Nullable TNullable<T> — an absent value told apart from a present default
Daf.Comparers TValueComparers, TNullableComparers — NULL-aware ordering and equality
Daf.Application.Version TVersionInfo, VersionAttribute — the application’s SemVer version, and the platform it was compiled for
Daf.Rtti RTTI helpers — _T.Extends, type predicates
Daf.Activator Create class instances via RTTI
Daf.Arrays TArrayHelper (Map, Trim), TSmartArray<T> (LINQ-style: Where, Select, Contains, Sort, …)
Daf.FilterSpec TFilterSpec<T> — closure predicate, composable with and / or / not
Daf.Types TDeferred<T> (re-read on every access), TMacrosList (${name} substitution), TEnvVars, Coalesce, Debugger

Quick examples

ARC smart pointer

uses Daf.MemUtils;

var Ref := ARC.From<TMyObject>(TMyObject.Create);
Ref().DoWork;
// auto-freed when Ref goes out of scope

Cancellation token

uses Daf.Threading;

var Cts   := CreateCancellationTokenSource;
var Token := Cts.Token;

TThread.CreateAnonymousThread(procedure
begin
  while not Token.IsCancellationRequested do
    DoWork;
end).Start;

Sleep(5000);
Cts.Cancel;

What belongs in Commons

One question decides it: does this extend the runtime library, or is it an application utility?

Daf.MemUtils, Daf.Types, Daf.Threading, Daf.Enumerable, Daf.Rtti, Daf.Arrays, Daf.Comparers and Daf.Nullable are things Delphi arguably should ship and does not. Every other package stands on this one, so anything that is used by an application rather than missing from the language belongs elsewhere — otherwise whoever wants a smart pointer ends up linking a process launcher too.

Two units moved out under that rule. Daf.SystemProcess kept its unit and type names, so adding a reference to the new package is enough for existing uses clauses to keep compiling. Daf.CmdLn.Parser went out too and has since been withdrawn: the command line is Daf.CommandLine, a port of .NET’s System.CommandLine.

Moved to What it does
Daf.SystemProcess TSystemProcess — async external process runner

Documentation

  • 📖 Usage Guide — full API reference for all units