LCL Internals

Internals of the LCL

There is the LCL, and the "interface". The LCL is the part that is platform independent, and it resides in the lazarus/lcl/ directory. This directory contains mainly class definitions. Many of the different controls are actually implemented in the lazarus/lcl/include/ directory in the various .inc files. This is to find the implementation of a specific control, TCustomMemo for example, faster (which is in custommemo.inc). Every .inc starts with a line {%MainUnit ...} to define where it is included.

Then there is the "interface" which lives in a subdirectory of the lazarus/lcl/interfaces/ directory. The gtk interface is in gtk/, win32 in win32/, etc. They all have a Interfaces unit, which is used by the lcl and creates the main interface object. Usually the main interface object is defined in XXint.pp (win32int.pp), and implemented in various inc files, XXobject.inc, for the interface specific methods, XXwinapi.inc for winapi implementation methods, XXlistsl.inc for implementation of the stringlist used by the TComboBox, TListBox, and other such controls, XXcallback.inc for handling of widget events and taking appropriate action to notify the LCL.

Every control has a WidgetSetClass property which is of the 'mirror' class in the interfaces directory, for example: mirror of TCustomEdit is TWSCustomEdit, which methods are implemented by TWin32WSCustomEdit in win32wsstdctrls. This is the way the LCL communicates with the interface, and how it lets the interface do things.

Communication of interface back to LCL is mostly done by sending messages, usually 'DeliverMessage' which calls TControl.Perform(<message_id>, wparam, lparam) with wparam and lparam being the extra info for the message.