Delphi language features

Here is incomplete Delphi/Object Pascal feature tree. Some features are dependent on others so some have precedence during compiler development.

• Statements
• Variables (var)
• Constants (const)
• Name spaces (namespace)
• Direct access to memory (pointers, directive absolute)
• Compiler directives:
  • Conditionals (IFDEF, ENDIF, DEFINE, ...)
  • Region, code hiding (REGION)
  • Compiler options (M, ...)
• Operators (and, or, xor, not, shl, shr, +, -, /, *, div, mod, as, in, ...)
• Expressions (parenthesis, operator priority, infix notation)
• Assignment (:=)
• Function overloading (overload)
• Integrated assembler (asm-end)
• Comments ( {}, //, (* *) )
• Subroutines (function, procedure)
  • Nested functions
  • Functions parameters
  • Inlined code (inline)
• Types (type)
  • Elementary
    • Enumeration (Boolean, ...)
    • Subrange (0..100, ...)
    • Ordinals (SmallInt, Byte, Integer, Word, Cardinal, Int64, ...)
    • Floating numbers (Real, Single, Double, Extended, ...)
    • Characters (Char, WideChar, AnsiChar, ...)
    • Strings (String, ShortString, AnsiString, WideString, PChar, ...)
    • Pointers (Pointer, @, ^)
    • Variant
    • Procedural types
  • Composed
    • Array, static/dynamic
    • Record
      • Překrývání proměnných (variant records): case Integer of...
      • Packed
      • Operator redefinition
      • Advanced with constants,types,variables,procedure/functions
    • Set
    • Class
      • Visibility (published, public, private, protected)
      • Methods (procedure, function)
        • Virtual methods (virtual, override)
        • Inlined (inline)
      • Inheritance (inherited)
      • Properties (property, default, indexed)
      • Events (property with function type)
      • Nested definitions
      • Constructors and destructors (constructor, destructor)
    • Interface (interface)
• Globals (variables, constants, types, functions)
• Modularity (unit)
  • Types (program, unit, package, library)
  • Initialization (initialization)
  • Finalization (finalization)
  • Sections (interface, implementation)
• Controls structures
  • Condition (if-then-else)
  • Loop with known cycle count (for-to-do)
  • Loop (repeat-until)
  • Loop (while-do)
  • Loop exit (break)
  • Jump to next iteration (continue)
  • Compound statement (begin-end)
  • Multiple branching (case-of)
  • Context change (with-do)
  • Exception raise (raise)
  • Exception handling (try-except)
  • Exception finalization (try-finally)
  • Loop with enumerators (for-in-do)
• Parametric types (generics)
  • Constraints (class, record, ordinal, float, ...)
• Translation strings (resourcestring)
• Thread local variables (threadvar)
• Reference counting (interface)
• Automatic memory management (memory manager)

Historic features

• File types (file, text)
• Direct jump (goto, label)