Inventory Delphi 7 assumptions
- Map third-party VCL components, runtime packages and source availability.
- Locate BDE or other database layers, client libraries and SQL behavior.
- Review Windows API declarations, pointer/integer casts and external DLL interfaces.
- Find code that assumes ANSI strings, byte-based character indexing or specific code pages.
- Preserve reports, printers, devices, automation and installer behavior as test cases.
The ANSI-to-Unicode transition can alter buffer sizes, file formats, API calls and external protocols. Adding casts until compilation succeeds can hide data corruption.
Stage the migration
| Baseline | Rebuild and test unchanged behavior in Delphi 7. |
|---|---|
| Components | Upgrade or replace packages with explicit behavior comparisons. |
| Compiler | Resolve language, Unicode and API differences with targeted tests. |
| Data/platform | Migrate database or deployment separately when possible. |
Use representative data and golden outputs, and retain rollback to the operational version through each release.
See build recovery, Delphi modernization, BDE migration and the Delphi pillar.