Free Pascal 2.2.4

Free Pascal 2.2.4 is a 32 and 64 bit professional Pascal compiler which is available for different processors (Intel 80386 and compatibles and Motorola 680x0) and operating systems (Linux, FreeBSD, NetBSD, DOS, Win32, OS/2, BeOS, SunOS (Solaris), QNX and Classic Amiga).

The language syntax is semantically compatible with TP 7.0 as well as most versions of Delphi (classes, rtti, exceptions, ansistrings). Furthermore Free Pascal supports function overloading, operator overloading and other such features.

Major Features:

1. Very clean language Pascal is a very nice language, your programs will be more readable and maintainable than for example in C, and lets even forget about C++. And you don't need to give up the power, the Pascal language is as powerful as you want it.
2. No Makefiles Unlike most programming languages, Pascal does not need Makefiles. You can save huge amounts of time, the compiler just figures out itself which files need to be recompiled.
3. Pascal compilers are Fast with a big F and Free Pascal is no exception.
   
4. Each unit has its own identifiers In Pascal you never need to worry about polluting the namespace, like in C where an identifier needs to be unique accross the entire program. No, in Pascal each unit gets its own namespace and thats very relaxed.
5. Integrated development environment Free Pascal comes with an IDE which work on several platforms, in which you can write, compile and debug your programs. You will save huge amounts of time using the IDE, the best programming friend you have.
6. Great integration with assembler: It's excellent for high tech programming and for the supreme nerds among you we have the integrated assemblers. You can easily mix assembler code and Pascal code, in the language you wish.
   
7. Object oriented programming: Use the Turbo Pascal and Object Pascal ways of OOP according to your taste. The FCL and Free Vision and provide you with the powerful object libraries you need.
8. Smartlinking Free Pascals smart linker leaves out any variable or code that you do not use. That makes small programs small with a big S, while they are still statically linked, avoiding DLL hell!
9. Distribution independence (Linux) As a result of this, software compiled by the Linux version of Free Pascal runs on any Linux distribution, making it much, much, easier to make your software support multiple Linux distributions.
10. Available for a lot of platforms on several architectures Free Pascal is available for more platforms than most other Pascal compilers and allows easy cross-compiling, just change the target in the IDE and compile! And there is work going on for even more platforms and processors.
11. Compatible Have existing code: Free Pascal is more compatible with it than any other Pascal compiler. It's almost completely compatible with Turbo Pascal and quite well compatible with Delphi source code. If you have code in another language, like C or assembler, just use favorite compiler for it and call it from Free Pascal.

Enhancements:

1. Some extra properties will now be streamed in such cases:
   
   • Boolean fields with the value false
   • Enumerated types with the ordinal value 0
2. TFieldDef.Size, TField.Size and TField.DataSize are defined as integers. This also means that definition of the corresponding methods has change
   
3. On all Unix-based systems, TProcess will not search for the executable in the current directory anymore.
   
4. By default, round now performs banker's rounding (round-to-nearest, halfway to even). If the rounding mode is changed using the Math unit's SetRoundMode  function, the round function now honours this change.
   

Requirements:

1. x86 architecture:
   
   • For the 80x86 version at least a 386 processor is required, but a 486 is recommended.
   • The Mac OS X version requires Mac OS X 10.4 or later, with the developer tools installed.
2. PowerPC architecture:
   
   • Any PowerPC processor
   • 16 MB of RAM is required.
   • The Mac OS classic version is expected to work System 7.5.3 and later.
   • The Mac OS X version requires Mac OS X 10.3 or later (can compile for 10.2.8 or later), with the developer tools installed.
3. ARM architecture
   
   • 16 MB of RAM is required.
   • Any ARM Linux installation.
4. Sparc architecture
   
   • 16 MB of RAM is required.
   • Any Sparc Linux installation (solaris is experimental).