Dynamic creation of TStringList

[JonathanBriggs]

Hello

Can anyone tell me how to dynamically create a string list, based on a prefix and a loop counter.

Hopefully, this pusedo code below will help explain what i am looking for...

Delphi 7.

for i:=0to Count-1do

begin

StringListPrefix+:=TStringList.Create;

Thanks for any help!

[WildBill]

Do you mean something like this?

Type
  TStringListArray = Array Of TStringList;

Var
  StringListArray = TStringListArray;

Procedure DestroyStringLists(Var ListArray: TStringListArray);
Var I: Integer;
Begin
  For I := 0 To High(ListArray) Do ListArray[I].Free;
  SetLength(ListArray,0);
End;

Procedure AllocateStringLists(Var ListArray: TStringListArray; Count: Integer);
Begin
  // If anything is already in the list, get rid of it

  DestroyStringLists(ListArray);

  // Allocate String Lists

  SetLength(ListArray,Count);
  For I := 0 To Count - 1 Do ListArray[I] := TStringList.Create;
End;

Begin
  // Test code

  AllocateStringLists(StringListArray);

  // Do something with the lists we created...

  // Destroy everything

  DestroyStringLists(StringListArray);
End;

You could also accomplish this by using a TStringList itself instead of an open array, but this is type-safe.

[JonathanBriggs]

Hello WildBill,

Yes! that was exactly what i was after. However, i ended up rewriting the whole function without the need for this unknown amount of string lists... its quite a good wee idea, hope you dont mind if i add it to my collection

[WildBill]

You're welcome. If you ever need associative lists (hashes), you might want to take a look at the STHashes unit in SmoothText's source code. It's in the Win2000 section. Delphi never came with decent hash code and I needed to write it to fill the gap.