Character and string types

Free Pascal supports several types of characters and strings.

AnsiChar

A variable of type AnsiChar is exactly 1 byte in size, and contains one ASCII character.

a

Reference

• FPC AnsiChar documentation

WideChar

A variable of type WideChar is exactly 2 bytes in size, and contains one Unicode character in UTF-16 encoding.

a

Reference

• FPC WideChar documentation

PChar

A variable of type PChar is basically a pointer to a Char type, but allows additional operations. PChars can be used to access C-style null-terminated strings, e.g. in interaction with certain OS libraries or third-party software.

a	b	c	#0
^

Reference

• FPC PChar documentation

PWideChar

A variable of type PWideChar is a pointer to a WideChar variable.

	a		b		c	#0	#0
^

Reference

• RTL PWideChar documentation

String

The type string may refer to ShortString or AnsiString, depending from the {$H} switch. If the switch is off ({$H-}) then any string declaration will define a ShortString. If it is on ({$H+}) string without length specifier will define an AnsiString, otherwise a ShortString with specified length.