What are Records

A record is a special type of data structure which, unlike arrays, collects a

number of fields of different data types which define a particular structure such
as a book, product, person and many others. The programmer defines the data
structure under the Type user definition.

Let us see how we can define the properties of a book using a record data
structure. Note that a record data structure gets close to the object entity used
in Object Oriented Programming. The properties of a book which we will be including
are its title, author, unique ISBN number and its price. This is how it is defined
in Pascal:

Type
Str25 = String[25];
TBookRec =
Record
Title, Author, ISBN : Str25;
Price : Real;
End;

Var
myBookRec : TBookRec;
That's it! Note that I could have used this structure as a variable by declaring it
under Var. When type-defining it, you can declare as many TBookRec variables as you
wish.The entities of the record (title, author...) are called fields and these will
be accessed through the instance of myBookRec variable. As you might have noticed,
the declaration of typical record data structure starts with the keyword Record and
always ends with the End keyword (note that there is no Begin keyword).

Now, you will see how we access the fields of the record by assigning them values
and retrieve them back later in the following small program.

Type
Str25 = String[25];
TBookRec =
Record
Title, Author, ISBN : Str25;
Price : Real;
End;

Var
myBookRec : TBookRec;

Begin
myBookRec.Title := 'Some Book';
myBookRec.Author := 'Victor John Saliba';
myBookRec.ISBN := '0-12-345678-9';
myBookRec.Price := 25.5;

Writeln('Here are the book details:');

Writeln;
Writeln('Title: ', myBookRec.Title);
Writeln('Author: ', myBookRec.Author);
Writeln('ISBN: ', myBookRec.ISBN);
Writeln('Price: ', myBookRec.Price);
Readln;
End.
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The 'With' Keyword
The With keyword is used in conjunction with recors to make it easier to access
fields. Although it helps with quick field evaluation, it is rarely used since it
has a lack of readability and increases ambiguity when coming to distinguish
between a variable having the same name as one of the field names of a record
within a with statement.

Taking a snippet from the previous example, this is how the code above transforms
when incorprating the With keyword.

With myBookRec do
Begin
Title := 'Some Book';
Author := 'Victor John Saliba';
ISBN := '0-12-345678-9';
Price := 25.5;
End;
Note how the fields in the Begin..End code block all belong to the Record TBookRec
data structure.

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Passing Records as Arguments
It may become very useful when records are required to be passed through arguments
and this will be demonstrated shortly. I will use the same data structure, pass it
by reference as a parameter and return the value back through the parameter also.

Type
Str25 = String[25];
TBookRec =
Record
Title, Author, ISBN : Str25;
Price : Real;
End;

Procedure EnterNewBook(var newBook : TBookRec);

Begin
Writeln('Please enter the book details: ');
Write('Book Name: ');
Readln(newBook.Title);
Write('Author: ');
Readln(newBook.Author);
Write('ISBN: ');
Readln(newBook.ISBN);
Write('Price: ');
Readln(newBook.Price);
End;

Procedure DisplayBookDetails(myBookRec : TBookRec);

Begin
Writeln('Here are the book details:');
Writeln;
Writeln('Title: ', myBookRec.Title);
Writeln('Author: ', myBookRec.Author);
Writeln('ISBN: ', myBookRec.ISBN);
Writeln('Price: ', myBookRec.Price);
End;

Var
bookRec : TBookRec;
Begin
EnterNewBook(bookRec);
Writeln('Thanks for entering the book details');
DisplayBookDetails(bookRec);
Readln;
End.
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Arrays of Records
Records may be stored in arrays and this will become very useful and it is not that
difficult to manage. We will use an array of records to store a number of different
books and by using this example, it will be immensely indicative to learn how to
use them.

In the following example I will use the procedures above to store 10 different
books from input and then output only one chosen record to display it back to
screen in order to demonstrate how to access a record from an array.

Type
Str25 = String[25];
TBookRec =
Record
Title, Author, ISBN : Str25;
Price : Real;
End;

Procedure EnterNewBook(var newBook : TBookRec);

Begin
Writeln('Please enter the book details: ');
Write('Book Name: ');
Readln(newBook.Title);
Write('Author: ');
Readln(newBook.Author);
Write('ISBN: ');
Readln(newBook.ISBN);
Write('Price: ');
Readln(newBook.Price);
End;

Var
bookRecArray : Array[1..10] of TBookRec;
i : 1..10;

Begin
For i := 1 to 10 do
EnterNewBook(bookRecArray[i]);

Writeln('Thanks for entering the book details');

Write('Now choose a record to display from 1 to 10: ');
Readln(i);
Writeln('Here are the book details of record #',i,':');
Writeln;
Writeln('Title: ', bookRecArray[i].Title);
Writeln('Author: ', bookRecArray[i].Author);
Writeln('ISBN: ', bookRecArray[i].ISBN);
Writeln('Price: ', bookRecArray[i].Price);
Readln;
End.
Note that you can also use arrays of records. Be careful how to place the square
brackets of the array. Also you can embed records within records. Dot operator will
be required to access deeper records.

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Binary Files and Records
Records can also be stored into files and this could be done by using binary files.
I will demonstrate storing records into files by continuing from the previous
example. Using binary files could be very handy, fast and more reliable over text
files. You can't afford storing hundreths of files by using text files since it
becomes confusing and even slower for the computer to process and read/write
from/to the file.

In the following example I will use a file of the book record I have created and
then store as many books as I want in the file using the binary file system. Watch
carefully how I will create the file of record and how I will perform the file I/O
for the binary file system. Also, I will make use of special built in functions
that help me position the file pointer to the record I want.

Note that with binary files, only Read and Write are allowed to read/write from/to
a file.

Type
Str25 = String[25];
TBookRec =
Record
Title, Author, ISBN : Str25;
Price : Real;
End;

Procedure EnterNewBook(var newBook : TBookRec);

Begin
Writeln('Please enter the book details: ');
Write('Book Name: ');
Readln(newBook.Title);
Write('Author: ');
Readln(newBook.Author);
Write('ISBN: ');
Readln(newBook.ISBN);
Write('Price: ');
Readln(newBook.Price);
End;

Var
bookRecArray : Array[1..10] of TBookRec;
tempBookRec : TBookRec;
bookRecFile : File of TBookRec;
i : 1..10;

Begin
Assign(bookRecFile, 'bookrec.dat');
ReWrite(bookRecFile);

For i := 1 to 10 do
Begin
EnterNewBook(bookRecArray[i]);
{ bookRecArray[i] now contains the book details }
Write(bookRecFile, bookRecArray[i]);
End;

Close(bookRecFile);
 Writeln('Thanks for entering the book details.');
Writeln('They are saved in a file!');
Write('Now choose a record to display from 1 to 10: ');
Readln(i);
ReSet(bookRecFile);
Seek(bookRecFile, i-1);
Read(bookRecFile, tempBookRec);
Close(bookRecFile);
Writeln('Here are the book details of record #',i,':');
Writeln;
Writeln('Title: ', tempBookRec.Title);
Writeln('Author: ', tempBookRec.Author);
Writeln('ISBN: ', tempBookRec.ISBN);
Writeln('Price: ', tempBookRec.Price);
Readln;
End.
The example program above demonstrated the use of the seek function. It's role is
to place the file pointer to the desired position. The first component of the file
is marked as 0. So you have to keep in mind that if you have a counter starting
from 1, you have to decrement it by 1 to obtain the actual record you want.

The seek function is very important and has an important role in binary file
system. Here are some uses of the function and how it can be used effectively to
obtain a particular position of the file.

Special Uses of the Seek Function

Seek the first record of the file

Seek(myFile, 0);
Seek the last record of the file

Seek(myFile, FileSize(myFile)-1);
Seek one position beyond the last record

Seek(myFile, FileSize(myFile));
Seek to the next position of the file from the current

Seek(myFile, FilePos(myFile)+1);
When trying to access from a file position that is beyonf the file limits, a
runtime error is automatically raised. Try to avoid this type of error. This may be
caused because you might have looped through the file and kept on looping beyond
its limits. Note that Seek(myFile, -1) is a typical runtime error becuase -1
position does not exist. 0 is the least and the first record in the file. Note that
FilePos is also very useful and it returns the current positon of the file. Please
note that FileSize returns the number of components in the specified file and not
the size in Bytes. If the file is empty, 0 is the returned value. On the other
hand, if the file contains 5 records (ie. 0 to 4), 5 is returned.

The structure of a binary file is just like blocks being stored contiguosly in a
line. Think of boxes being placed one adjacent the other and each one of them has
data. There is a space between this boxes that indicates the file positon and we
can easily depict this fact below.

0 BookRec0 1 BookRec1 2 BookRec2 3 BookRec3 4

BookRec4
^
The first row is the actual file showing the indexes of each record block and the
second row shows the file pointer ie. the file position. The current file position
shown in the illustration above is relevant to Seek(myFile, 1). Now you have been
assured that the number 1 record of a file is not the first record of the file.
After the last record, there is an EOF marker that indicates the end of the file
and it is not legal to go beyond this point except for only one position to allow
appending ie. Seek(myFile, FileSize(myFile)).