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How to use Personal settings and the windows registry Turn on/off line numbers in source code. Switch to Orginial background IDE or DSP color Comment or reply to this aritlce/tip for discussion. Bookmark this article to my favorite article(s). Print this article
04-Jun-03
Category
Win API
Language
Delphi 5.x
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Publisher:
DSP, Administrator
Reference URL:
DKB
			 Author: Teun Spaans

What is the structure of the registry? 
What settings to store in the registry, how to do so?

Answer:

Scope

This article is the third article in a series of four articles about personal 
settings. This article deals with the usage of the registry for retaining personal 
settings. It explains the working of the registry, how to read & write date in the 
registry from Delphi, and contains an example: a form which reads its previous 
position on the screen. 

One thing every application i.m.h.o. should contain is a registration in the 
registry -the registry should have a clue in which directory your application has 
been stored. You may choose to have this handled by your installtion program, which 
is a logical place to do so. But the program can also do it itself, so that the 
user moving the directory with your application from the windows explorer can fix 
its own settings by simply starting your program. 

The registry - its structure

The registry was introduced by Microsoft with Windows 95. In Windows 95 and Windows 
98, there are 2 files in your windows directory called user.dat and system.dat 
which contain the data in your registry. However, in all cases Microsoft provides a 
utility regedit to browse and change the registry. 

When you use this tool to open your registry, you will see 5 base keys: 

HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT 

HKEY_CURRENT_USER 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE 

HKEY_USERS 

HKEY_CURRENT_CONFIGURATION 


These five keys are identical in all window versions. Each one has many subkeys, 
which in turn have subkeys again. The registry has a strict hierarchical structure. 
For our purpose only 2 of them are interesting: HKEY_CURRENT_USER and 
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE. The first is, as the name suggests, user dependant, the second 
is applicable to all the machine. You might think this key contains just hardware 
related data, but it has a subkey for software as well. The local machine root is a 
good choice for items applicable to all users. 

Reading data

The reading of data from the registry is illustrated with an example. We will 
cerate a new form which will remember its previous location on the screen. The 
location is determined by the Top and Left properties of the form. In addition to 
these, we will read and store the Height and Width properties of the form.  
 
1   const
2   
3     cKey = 'SOFTWARE\Test_Company\Test_Application';
4     // key where item values will be stored and read
5   
6   procedure TRememberForm.FormCreate(Sender:
7     TObject);
8   var
9     lReg: TRegistry;
10    getInt: integer;
11  begin
12    inherited;
13    // general purpose:
14    // read latest Left, Top, Width and Height
15    lReg := TRegistry.Create;
16    // create registry object
17    lReg.RootKey := HKEY_CURRENT_USER;
18    // set root to current user root,
19    // to ensure different users on this
20    // machine have their own setting
21    lReg.OpenKey(cKey, True);
22    // Open key where we will read items
23    if lReg.ValueExists(self.name +
24      '.Left') then // check if
25      value for item formname.left exists
26      begin
27        getint := lReg.ReadInteger(self.name
28          + '.Left'); // Read left position of actual form
29        if getint > 0 then
30          self.Left := getint;
31      end;
32    if lReg.ValueExists(self.name +
33      '.Top') then
34    begin
35      getint := lReg.ReadInteger(self.name + '.Top');
36      if getint > 0 then
37        self.Top := getint;
38    end;
39    if lReg.ValueExists(self.name + '.Width') then
40    begin
41      getint := lReg.ReadInteger(self.name + '.Width');
42      if getint > 0 then
43        self.Width := getint;
44    end;
45    if lReg.ValueExists(self.name + '.Height') then
46    begin
47      getint := lReg.ReadInteger(self.name + '.Height');
48      if getint > 0 then
49        self.Height := getint;
50    end;
51    // Close and free
52    lReg.CloseKey;
53    lReg.Free;
54  end;
55    
56  //Let's have a short look at the main points: 
57  
58  lReg := TRegistry.Create;
59  // create registry object
60  
61  //This line creates the Registry object.
62  
63  lReg.RootKey := HKEY_CURRENT_USER;
64  // set root to current user root,
65  // to ensure different users on this
66  // machine have their own setting


We set the root to indicate in which of the 5 roots we want to work. 
HKEY_CURRENT_USER is the default value. Alternately, we might have chosen 
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE if we wanted to save settings for all users on this machine. 

67  lReg.OpenKey(cKey, True);
68  // Open key where we will read items


The key where items will be stored and read is opened. If the key does not exist, 
windows automatically creates it. Note that capitalization is important when the 
registry key is created. Most entries in the registry have first letter uppercase 
and the rest lowercase, and it is good practice to comply. 

69  if lReg.ValueExists(self.name + '.Left') then
70    // check if value for item formname. left exists


This statement tests if the item FormName.left exists within the open key. 

71  begin
72    getint := lReg.ReadInteger(self.name
73      + '.Left'); // Read left position of actual form


As an alternative for ReadInteger, the TRegistry object also provides functions to 
read strings, booleans, dates, datetimes, times, floats, and binary data. 

74  if getint > 0 then
75    self.Left := getint;
76  end;


By putting all these code in the FormCreate, the window is automatically positioned 
at the right spot at creation. Of course the code above can not be really tested 
when we don't have any data, so the next step is to write these items in the 
FormDestroy. 

Writing data

The FormDestroy event is a good moment to write the data to the registry. The code 
is a lot shorter:  
77  
78  procedure TRememberForm.FormDestroy(Sender: TObject);
79  var
80    lReg: TRegistry;
81  begin
82    // open registry, set root and key
83    lReg := TRegistry.Create;
84    lReg.RootKey := HKEY_CURRENT_USER;
85    lReg.OpenKey(cKey, True);
86    // write last Left, Top, Width and Height
87    lReg.WriteInteger(self.name + '.Left', self.Left);
88    lReg.WriteInteger(self.name + '.Top', self.Top);
89    lReg.WriteInteger(self.name + '.Width', self.Width);
90    lReg.WriteInteger(self.name + '.Height', self.Height);
91    // close all
92    lReg.CloseKey;
93    lReg.Free;
94    inherited;
95  end;

 
As with reading data, the same applies with writing data. You can easily write 
booleans, currencies, dates, datetimes, floats, strings and times, and binary data. 
In addition, there is a WriteExpandString, which is meant for unexpanded strings 
with "%" in it, such as "Open file %s failed". 

WriteInteger creates a name when the name does not yet exist. If a write operation 
fails, an exception is raised. 

Alternatives

There are 2 other objects, TRegIniFile and TRegistryInifile available. 

TRegistryIniFile presents a simple interface to the system registry and hides the 
need to know about the underlying structure of the registry. TRegistryIniFile 
enables handling the Windows system registry as if it were a Windows 3.x INI file. 
Instead of processing an INI file, however, TRegistryIniFile reads from and writes 
to the system registry. 

TRegIniFile presents a simple interface to the system registry, hiding the need to 
know about the underlying structure of the registry. TRegIniFile acts as a helper 
object to TRegistryIniFile. 

Personally I avoid using these 2 classes. The programmer saves some time by not 
having to understand the registry. But the structure of the registry is rather 
straightforward hierarchical, and using the registry as if it was an ini-file 
limits its usage. 

Limitations and final words

There are a few limitations which we haven't discussed. First, The registry is not 
meant a a database for storing vast quantities of data. It is meant for storing 
initialization and configuration data. Anything over 2Kb had better be stored in a 
separate file. If you wish, you can mention the corresponding file location in the 
registry. Then WriteBinary is especially useful for storing recordtypes. Using a 
record type saves you typing code, and it can be written to and read from the 
registry with 1 statement, saving both time and storage. And a large registry might 
slow down all applications. 

There is a small bug in the MoveKey procedure under WNT. It should move a key 
including Subkeys, but it does not, at least not in D2-4. In the help of Delphi 5 
this problem has been documented. The problem does not seem to appear under W2K. 

Third, it seems Windows NT & Windows 2000 administrators can limit Registry access. 
Using the registry may conflict with IT-policies in some companies. 

Should you like the form we created, right click on the form and choose 'add to 
repository'. You can then create descendants by choosing File / New / forms. 


Component Download: http://www.xs4all.nl/~spaanszt/Delphi/DemoRegistry.zip

			
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