How to use PAL.EXE and PAL32.EXE

Activation

When starting PAL for the first time, your license must be activated through the Internet, unless you activated it during the installation. If you are running PAL on a computer that has not got access to the Internet, you can create an activation XML file and send to us. You will then receive a response XML file that you use to manually activate.

For the activation, use the registration key that was sent to you by mail when buying the product license. This key is good for a small number of activations. Contact us if you run out of activations, for example when reinstalling on a new computer. You are entitled to install Pascal Analyzer on up to four computers, as long as you are the Pascal Analyzer user on those computers. If more than one developer needs Pascal Analyzer, additional licenses must be bought.

If you need to move the installation to another computer, you can deactivate the license on the current computer. Then you will be able to activate the license on the new computer. Use the menu command "Deactivate License" in the About-menu for this.

Summary

PAL is an easy-to-use standalone Windows program. Just create a new project and select a source file to analyze. Either select a complete Delphi project (DPR-file), Delphi package (DPK-file) or a single source file (PAS-file), set a few options and start the analysis. PAL presents the results either as plain text in a text viewer or in a HTML browser (as HTML or XML). All reports are written to text (*.txt), HTML files (*.htm) or XML files (*.xml) for later retrieval, maybe in another tool or editor.

You do not have to alter your code in order to examine it with PAL. PAL does not either change or affect your code in any way.

Follow this simple procedure to create reports in PAL:

1. Create a new PAL project. Then select a main file to analyze, either a complete Delphi project or a single source file. You can also open an existing PAL project.

 
2. Make sure that the selected compiler target is suitable for the source code. Enter other options that are required, like which main file to analyze.

3. Press the Run button and wait from a few seconds till several minutes, depending on the size of the code and the number of reports selected.
 

4. Examine the reports with the built-in text viewer or HTML browser.

In order to make your source code possible to analyze with PAL, you should make certain that only one statement exists for every source line, like

procedure Proc;

var

I : integer;

begin

..

I := 5;                

CallProc(I);

..

end;

..and not like

procedure Proc;

var

I : integer;

begin

..

I := 5; CallProc(I);

..

end;        

Avoid the latter case, because PAL cannot decide if the identifier I is set or referenced first. It is also considered better coding to only keep one statement on each line.

PAL is not a Delphi IDE plug-in (expert or wizard). It is a standalone program. You can however install the application in the Delphi IDE, allowing easy access from within the Delphi development environment. If you want to try a Delphi IDE plug-in, check out our Pascal Expert product. It contains some of the capabilities of Pascal Analyzer, available while you are developing.

To install PAL in the Delphi IDE, follow these simple steps:

1. Start Delphi and select Tools|Configure Tools

2. In the dialog box, press the Add button

3. Fill the fields, for example with these values:

See also:

Introduction

How to use PALCMD.EXE
Known limitations

Command Line Options for PAL.EXE and PAL32.EXE

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