IT Practical Book Grade12

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Information Technology Practical Book Grade 12
ISBN 978-1-928388-56-2
First published in 2019 © 2019. Copyright in the text remains with the contributors.
Quality Assurance team for Information Technology
Allison Philander, Carina Labuscagne, David Peens, Denise van Wyk, Edward Gentle,
Jugdeshchand Sewnanen, Julian Carstens, Magdalena Brits, Shamiel Dramat, Shani
Nunkumar and Zainab Karriem Restrictions
You may not make copies of this book in part or in full – in printed or electronic or audio or
video form – for a pro t seeking purpose.
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publishers welcome the opportunity to redress this with any unacknowledged copyright
holders.
Contents
Term 1
Chapter 1 Programming fundamentals
Introduction
Unit 1.1 Problem solving
Unit 1.2 Procedures and functions in the Delphi runtime libraries
Unit 1.3 Procedures and functions
Unit 1.4 User interface design
Unit 1.5 Databases
Consolidation activity
Term 2
Chapter 2 Object-oriented programming
Introduction
Unit 2.1 De ning a user-de ned class
Unit 2.2 Using the class
Chapter 3 Two-dimensional arrays
Introduction
Unit 3.1 2D arrays
Unit 3.2 2D arrays with data
Unit 3.3 Application for 2D arrays
Term 3
Chapter 4 Databases and SQL
Introduction
Unit 4.1 Select and sort columns
Unit 4.2 Select columns and rows
Unit 4.3 Calculated columns
Unit 4.4 Aggregate functions
Unit 4.5 Data maintenance
Unit 4.6 Querying two tables
Unit 4.7 Database applications
Annexure A – Shneiderman’s ‘Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design’
Annexure B – 10 usability heuristics for user interface design
Annexure C – Using SQL in Delphi

Annexure D – Component names and description
Annexure E – The ASCII table
Annexure F – Enrichment
Glossary
Dear Learner
Welcome to the IT Practical Grade 12 textbook, and welcome to
programming.
If this is your rst time learning how to program, don’t worry. This
textbook has been designed to teach anyone – regardless of
experience – how to program. If you follow along with all the examples
then you will be an experienced programmer who has written more
than 50 programs by the end of this book.
Programming and programming languages, much like real languages,

can only be learned through practice. You cannot sit at home and learn
to speak French from a textbook. In the same way, you cannot read
this book and hope to be a programmer at the end of it. Instead, you
will need to write every bit of code and create every program shown in
this book. Even if all you do is follow the steps of the examples on your
own computer, you will learn how to write code. Once you have
mastered the code, you will be able to comfortably use it in your own
programs.
For you to master programming, try to work through as many of the

programs given to you. Each program has been designed to both
teach you new concepts and reinforce existing concepts. The book will
start by teaching you how to create simple programs. However, by the
end of the book you will be creating useful programs and fun games to
play.
Programming is not only about knowing and using the programming

language. There are also important theoretical concepts that you will
need to understand, and planning and problem-solving tools that you
will need to master. The best-coded program in the world will not be
useful if it solves the wrong problem. This book has therefore been
divided into the following chapters:
Chapter 1: Programming fundamentals
Chapter 2: Object-oriented programming
Chapter 3: Two-dimensional arrays
Chapter 4: Databases and SQL
Before getting started with algorithms, watch the video in the QR code.
To give you the most opportunities to learn, this book will give three
types of programming activities:
Examples
Examples will guide you through the creation of a program from start to
nish. All you need to do with examples is to follow the step-by-step
guidance provided to you.
Guided activities
Guided activities have a program that you need to create on your own.
Your teacher will provide you with the solution. These solutions should
be used as an opportunity to compare your program, and to see
where you may have made errors or left something out.
Activities
Activities are programs that your teacher can give to you as classroom
activities or homework. With these programs, you will only be
assessed on how well your program works, so use your creativity to
come up with a solution!
‘Take note’ and ‘Did you know’ boxes

The boxes provide extra, interesting content that might caution you to
‘take note’ of something important; or give you additional information.
Note that the content in the ‘Did you know’ boxes will not be part of
your exams.
New words
These are dif cult words that you may not have encountered before. A
brief explanation for these words are given.
QR Codes, Videos and Screen captures
These will link you to online content. When you are in the eBook, you
can easily access the links.
Consolidation activities
This is a revision activity based on what you have covered in the
chapter. Take time to answer the questions on your own. You teacher
may also use these to assess your performance during class.
CHAPTER UNITS
Unit 1.2 Procedures and functions in the Delphi

run–time libraries
Unit 1.5 Databases
Learning outcomes
At the end of this chapter you should be able to:

use algorithms, owcharts and pseudocode to plan applications
debug applications using a variety of different techniques
create applications using the Delphi IDE
list and describe the most commonly used properties
create events for Delphi applications
use number variables and functions in applications
use string variables and functions in applications
use arrays and les in applications
use different looping structures in applications
use conditional structures in applications
create user-de ned methods for applications
describe and implement the principles of user interface design
dynamically create Delphi components in applications
create and read text les in Delphi applications
create a connection to a database using Delphi components
use data from a database in applications.
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, you will brie y look at all the concepts learned in Grade
10 and Grade 11. To ensure this information is fresh in your mind, this
chapter contains ve new programs for you to create. These include a
statistical simulator, a fake virus application, and a word clock. Work
carefully to complete these programs and the units in this chapter.
The remaining chapters of this book will rely on the fact that you are
competent and con dent with your knowledge about the concepts
that we revise in Chapter 1.
UNIT
1.1 Problem solving
SOFTWARE ENGINEERING: A GUIDE FOR YOUR PAT

Problem solving refers to the process through which a solution is found
to a complex problem. Since programmers spend most of their time
solving problems, they need to have a method to systematically tackle
new problems.
The problem-solving method consists of four steps. These are
illustrated in the diagram below and explained brie y:
Did you know
Programming is a way of thinking –

not a rote skill. Learning about ‘For’
loops is not learning to program, any
more than learning about pencils is
learning how to draw.
4 TIPS TO SOLVE
PROGRAMMING PROBLEMS
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=IsLeirHcoJQ
THE PROBLEM-SOLVING METHOD
One of the best problem-solving strategies is: do something.
Take note
First solve the problem, then write

the code.
– John Johnson
If, at any time, you get stuck on trying to gure out a solution to a
problem, brainstorm your solution using a pencil and paper before
trying to write the code for the program. Remember that the most
important part of planning is creating a detailed implementation plan
that describes how you will solve the problem. To create this plan, you
need to make a list (or checklist) of every task that needs to be
completed.
In Grade 10 we looked at the user story. This tool is well-suited to help

you as you create your detailed implementation plan.
Example 1.1 Creating a detailed implementation plan
TEMPLATE: USER STORIES

Once we have used our user story to create an implementation plan to solve our
problem, we have a good idea about which tasks are needed to solve our problem.
Next we can start looking at screen layout for the tasks – this is driven by the user
stories.
Here is an activity diagram, which provides an excellent way of capturing the broad
picture.
Figure 1.1: Activity diagram – Overview of system (UML)
Once we have completed our activity diagram, we can now consider building a
prototype in Delphi, building screens and linking them. However, there will be no
functionality yet.
We call this evolutionary prototyping and it demonstrates the logical

program ow and navigation between screens. This helps you ensure
that the layouts are functional and satisfy the usability requirements.
Take note
In Unit 1.4 of this chapter, we will

discuss useful design tips.
Also see Shneiderman’s Eight Golden
Rules of Interface Design in Annexure
A.
WHAT ABOUT THE DATA?

Because we have an implementation plan as well as a basic Delphi
prototype to help us solve our problem in place, we can begin looking
at the data we need to complete the tasks we have identi ed. By using
the ‘user stories’ you can get a good idea of what data you will need.
In Grade 10 you also looked at a tool called the ‘noun-verb analysis’.

This tool is useful for extracting this information from the user stories.
Look at the the second column of Figure 1.1 above. Work through the
following steps:
Work through the ‘user stories’ template and collect all of the nouns
(YELLOW). In this way you can determine what objects or entities
you need to manipulate. The verbs (GREEN) will give you more
details of how this should be done.
WHAT’S UML AND WHY DO
YOU NEED IT?
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List all the details of the entities. You can unpack them using the
information you researched earlier.
Create a ‘data dictionary’ in which you can add the name of the data
elds you have identi ed and their types. An example is shown
below:
Did you know
Nicholas Wirth used this title on his

famous Pascal book: Algorithms +
Data Structure = Program
Now you are ready to set up a database if your problem requires it.
Create the UML diagram to illustrate your database and classes. An
example is shown below:
Figure 1.2: UML diagram to illustrate your database and classes
Think about how you will complete each of the tasks identi ed in the
user stories. Start by ordering the user stories by importance:
‘essential’, ‘important’ and ‘nice to have’. Consider how things will
interact with each other.
Test each small sub-program as you go. To do this, you can use the
debugging techniques such as trace-tables, variable watches, error
catching and trace printing to nd errors.
Make good use of owcharts or Pseudocode to plan the
implementation of algorithms you require. Remember the principles
of IPO as you continue with the designs of the algorithms. This will
ensure that you end up with a robust solution.
When you get stuck with the implementation of a particular sub-task,
create a small, standalone program to sort out the problem, and
then move it back into the main program. Because of the detailed
implementation plan, you can systematically complete all the small,
individual tasks listed on your plan.
Check to see if the plan solved the problem. To do this, test that
each sub-task meets its goal.
New words
Double – The Double data type

can store 15 - 16 digits in the
fraction part of a decimal number
and thus support greater precision.
Debugging – The process of
detecting and removing existing
and potential errors (also called
‘bugs’) in software code that can
cause it to behave unexpectedly or
crash.
Test the program for any calculation errors or logical problems. To do

this, you can use techniques like trace tables, variable watches, error
catching. Make use of these debugging tools and/or trace printing to
nd errors.
Output samples to ensure the program works as expected.
Look back to your initial problem statement and the ‘user stories’
and compare your output to the requirements. This nal check
ensures that you have not only met the requirements listed on your
plan, but also the original requirements from the user stories.
Remember to include extreme values, for example boundary values,
minimum values, and so on, in your test data to ensure the program
works for any value.
Take note
Your program might:

fail to solve the problem
only partially solve the problem
create new problems.
If your evaluation reveals any
remaining problems, you can
repeat the problem-solving
process, focusing on these new
problems.
UNIT
1.2 Procedures and functions in the Delphi
runtime libraries
In this unit you will learn about some of the procedures and functions
in the Delphi run–time libraries. These will help you as you create
different programs to solve problems that you may need to solve as a
programmer.
DATE AND TIME

The DateTime variable is a container for a variable of type double.
When you look at the variable it shows a date and time (for example, 1
January 2019 06:00:00), but the actual value stored in the variable is a
number with a decimal (for example, 43418.25). When working with
this value, the whole number represents the full days since 30
December 1899, while the decimal value represents a fraction of a day
(that is, the time).
To create a DateTime variable, you can use one of the techniques

shown in the table below:
There are also four named functions you can use to access speci c
times. They are:
Yesterday: Returns the DateTime of 00:00:00, the previous day.
Date: Returns the DateTime of 00:00:00, today.
Tomorrow: Returns the DateTime of 00:00:00, tomorrow.
Now: Returns the current date and time.
To do calculations with a DateTime variable, you add (or subtract) the

number or fractions of days to the variable. If you want to set the
DateTime’s value equal to now, seven days ago, you can subtract
seven days from the current DateTime as follows:
Seven days ago

tLastWeek := Now – 7;
To add or subtract times, you need to add or subtract the appropriate

decimal value. The table below shows the decimal value per unit for
hours, minutes and seconds.
Did you know
It is usually easier to remember the

calculation used to obtain the decimal
unit than the exact decimal unit.
One of the biggest advantages of the DateTime variable is the

functions related to it. The table below shows some of the most useful
DateTime functions:
FUNCTIONS 1 - DELPHI
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PROCEDURES - DELPHI
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To use these methods, you need to add the DateUtils library to your
project. This is done by including the text DATEUTILS in the USES
section of your application. Once added, you can use any of the
functions inside the DateUtils library.
Example 1.2 Word Clock
Open the project in the Word Clock folder. We will now create the code for the
Word Clock. To do this, you need to:
1. Use a variable to store the current time.
2. Use functions to isolate the seconds, minutes and hours from the time.
3. Use a function to ensure that the hours only includes the numbers 1 to 12.
4. Determine whether the time of day is in the morning, afternoon or evening.
5. Write this information to the correct labels every second.
Once you are done, save your application in the folder 01 – Word Clock.
Solution
For this application, you only needed to use the timer’s OnTimer event. The code
below gives one possible method for solving this problem, although there are many
other solutions that would also work.
OnTimer event
procedure TfrmWordClock.tmrTimerTimer(Sender: TObject);
var
tTime : TDateTime;
sTimeOfDay : String;
iHours : Integer;
begin
lblSeconds.Caption := FormatDateTime('s', Now) + ' seconds and';
lblMinutes.Caption := FormatDateTime('n', Now) + ' minutes past';
tTime := Now – Date;

if tTime < 0.5 then
sTimeOfDay := ' in the morning';
if (tTime >= 0.5) and (tTime < 0.75) then
sTimeOfDay := ' in the afternoon';
if tTime >= 0.75 then
sTimeOfDay := ' in the evening';

iHours := StrToInt(FormatDateTime('h', tTime)) mod 12;
if iHours = 0 then
iHours := 12;

lblHours.Caption := IntToStr(iHours) + sTimeOfDay;
end;
Once you are done, run and save your application.
In this code, the rst two lines make use of the FormatDateTime
function to display the seconds or minutes of the current time (NOW).
Since the timer updates every second, the time calculated as NOW will
increase every second, resulting in the labels showing the newest time
every second.
The tricky part of this code is to update the third line, which shows
whether the hours are in the morning or evening, as well as showing
the hours between 1 and 12 (and not 0 to 24). To do this:
Start by subtracting the current date (date function) from the current
date and time (now function).
This will return only the time which will be a fraction between 0 and 1
(with 0 representing 00:00 AM, 0.5 representing 12:00 PM and 1
representing 00:00 AM the next day).
With this decimal value, you can use IF-THEN statements to
determine whether it is currently the morning, afternoon or evening.
Make sure the hours are always between 1 and 12. To do this, you
start by isolating the hours from the time. While this can be done in a
number of ways, the code above uses the FormatDateTime function
to display a string that only contains the hours. This string is then
converted into an integer.
By using the mod 12 mathematical operator, you calculate the
remainder of the hours divided by 12. This will always return the
correct hour value under 12. However, when it is 12 o’clock in the
morning or night, the remainder will be 0, which is incorrect. To x
this, an IF-THEN statement is used to change the value from 0 to 12.
The hours are converted back to a string and assigned, together
with the time of the day, to the label’s caption.
ARRAYS AND FILES
ARRAYS
Arrays are variables that can be used to store multiple related variables
of the same type (called elements). As long as there is space left in the
array, you can continue writing new information to it. Each array has an
array index, which is an integer that indicates the number of the
element you want to access in the array. An array can be created using
the following syntax:
aName : Array[FirstIndex..LastIndex] of Type;
CREATING AN ARRAY
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FOR-loops are often used to access each of the items in your array.
For example, if the value of each banking transaction is stored in an
array variable, you can nd the total of all transactions as follows:
For-loops and arrays

for i := 0 to Length(aTransaction) do
begin
dTotal := rTotal + aTransaction[i];
end;
FILES
To store data used or created by your program permanently, you need
to store data in a le on your computer. When working with les in an
application, you need to follow ve steps. These are:
declare the TextFile variable
assign a text le name to the variable
indicate how the le will be used (rewrite, reset or append)
use the le in the application
close the le
The code snippet below, which writes the phrase “Hello, World!” to a
le, shows each of these steps.
File syntax
var
fOutputFile : TextFile; // Declare the variable
begin
AssignFile(fOutputFile, 'output.txt'); //
Assign the variable
Rewrite(fOutputFile); // Indicate how the file
will be used
WriteLn(fOutputFile, 'Hello, World!'); // Use
the file
CloseFile(fOutputFile); // Close the file
end;
The following functions can be used to write to or read from a TextFile.
To read all the data from a TextFile, the two functions from the table are
usually combined with a WHILE-DO-loop, as shown in the code
snippet below.
While loop to read les

while not Eof(fName) do
ReadLn(fName, sOutput);
Activity 1.1
Answer the following questions using a pen and paper.

1.1.1 Give the method and syntax for the following:
a. Converting a string to an integer.
b. Calculating the remainder of division.
c. Rounding a real number to an integer.
d. Copying characters from one string to another string.
e. Finding the year of a date and time.
f. Determining if a year is a leap year.
g. Declaring an array with 5 integer elements.
h. Opening a le to add text to it.
1.1.2 What is the difference between the APPEND, REWRITE and RESET
procedures?
Activity 1.2
Update your Word Clock activity so that it looks as follows. The date at the bottom of
the clock should update automatically and be shown in a single label.
Figure 1.3: The World Clock
UNIT
1.3 Procedures and functions
CODE YOUR OWN

Procedures and functions are groups of statements that are created
that complete a speci c task. These procedures and functions can be
created for a number of different reasons. They:
break the code into smaller, more manageable pieces.
make the code easier to understand.
make it easier to nd problems.
make it easier to add new functions or update the code.
allow you to re-use certain algorithms from different events.
For these reasons, professional programmers try to make use of

procedures and functions whenever their code becomes too long or
dif cult to manage. A general guideline is that you should try to not
have the same code repeated, keep procedures (including events) to
less than 15 lines of code, and they should almost never be more than
30 lines of code. Just as importantly, each procedure should do only
one thing and it should do this thing well.
Both procedures and functions can accept variable inputs (called

parameters), but only functions can return a value. The following syntax
is used to create a procedure:
Procedure with value parameters

procedure ProcedureName(parameterName1 : type1;
parameterName2 : type2);
var
var1 : Type;
begin
Statement1;
Statement2;
...
Statement1000;
end;
Once a parameter value is sent to a procedure, it works exactly the
same as any other variable. The only difference between parameters
and variables is that the parameters are de ned next to the procedure
name and that the parameters start with a value. To call a procedure,
the following syntax is used.
Calling a procedure
ProcedureName(Value1, Value2 ... Value1000);
Where the values must be the same number, in the same order and of
the same type as the parameters in the declaration the procedure.
There are only three differences between the function syntax and the
procedure syntax:
All functions start with the key word function.
After the parameters are listed, functions must specify the variable
type of the return value.
Inside the function, a value must be assigned to the variable Result.
This value will be returned once the last line of the function has been
executed.
Function syntax
function FunctionName(parameter1 : Type;
parameter2 : Type): ReturnType;
var
var1 : Type;
begin
Statement1;
Statement2;
...
Result := Value of ReturnType;
end;
A function can be called in the same way as a procedure except that

its return value must be assigned to a variable. To call a function:
Calling a function
ReceivedValue := FunctionName(Value1, Value2
... Value1000);
Custom functions and procedures must be declared after the

implementation section of a project but before the rst automatically
created procedure. This allows all the automatic procedures following
the custom functions to make use of the custom functions.
Custom functions and procedures also have access to the form’s

global variables and components. However, in order to access the
components, the procedure and functions must rst use the form’s
name, followed by a full stop, followed by the component’s name. This
is shown in the code below.
Accessing a component from user de ned methods

sValue1 := frmName.lblData.Caption;
sValue2 := frmName.edtData.Text;
Example 1.4 Use reading from and writing to a le to copy the contents
Open the project in the folder 01 – Copy File and insert the following code:
Declare the procedure copyMyFile in the private section:
procedure copyMyFile(fromFile : String;

toFile :String);
Press <Control + shift + C> to create the stub for the procedure.
Add the following code:
procedure TForm1.copyMyFile(fromFile, toFile:

String);
var
infile : TextFile;
outFile: TextFile;
line : String;
begin
if Not FileExists(fromFile) then
showMessage(fromfile + ‘NOT FOUND’)
else
begin
AssignFile(inFile, fromFile);
Reset(infile);
AssignFile(outFile, toFile);
Rewrite(outFile);
while not eof(inFile) do
begin
readln(infile, line);
writeln(outFile, line);
end;
closeFile(infile);
closeFile(outFile);
showMessage(‘File copied’);
end;
Add the code below to the [Copy File] button Onclick event:
procedure TForm1.btnCopyFileClick(Sender:
TObject);
var
fromFile: String;
toFile: String;
begin
fromFile := InputBox('File Copy', 'Copy from
– filename:','');
toFile := InputBox('File Copy', 'Copy to –
filename:','');
copyMyFile(fromFile, toFile);
End;
Run the program and enter the lename Acronyms.txt . This le will be
copied to a le with the name of your choice, that is, the name you
enter in the second input box.
Activity 1.3
Using pen and paper, create the following user-de ned functions.
1.3.1 A custom function that accepts a number and an exponent and calculates the
solution.
1.3.2 A function that returns only the largest value from an array.
1.3.3 A function that returns the nth largest value from an array, where n is provided
by the user.
UNIT
1.4 User interface design
The difference between an application that is used by millions of

people and an application that is left untouched is often the user
interface. This is because applications with easy, fun, beautiful, simple
and intuitive interfaces are enjoyable to use, while poorly designed user
interfaces can be incredibly confusing and frustrating to use.
WHAT IS USER INTERFACE

DESIGN?
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This unit looks at the principles of user interface design, how a multi-
form user interface can be created and how dynamic user interfaces
can be created.
PRINCIPLES OF USER INTERFACE DESIGN

The following principles should be used when creating user interfaces:
Put users in control
Minimise the effort
Eliminate useless items
Give visual cues
Give feedback Be consistent
Accommodate all users. The rst step to building a good user
interface is to give users control. This means that users should be
able use the application and complete tasks in ways that feel intuitive
to them.
Take note
Also see Shneiderman’s Eight

Golden Rules of Interface Design in
Annexure A.
The next core concept is to minimise the effort it takes to use the
program. This means you should not ask users to enter the same
information more than once, not use unfamiliar jargon or strange
terms, make the transition to the next step obvious, help users to
provide the correct information, and protect users work so that they
never accidentally lose work.
Figure 1.4: Medium (https://medium.com/) minimises user effort allowing users
sign-in with a Google or Facebook account
Next, visual elements that are not helping users should be

eliminated or hidden until needed. In this way, users are not
overwhelmed by all the options and it is clear to users what they are
expected to do. Similarly, you should also eliminate steps or tasks
that are irrelevant to the solution of the problem.
One way in which applications can be made simpler is by using
visual cues. These cues help users to understand where they are in
your application, what they are doing, how the application works and
what you expect them to do next. Popular visual cues include
colours, photos, arrows, icons, animations or a single larger
component.
Figure 1.5: WebAfrica uses bright colours to draw the attention to interactive
elements
The fth key concept is to give users feedback. This means that
users should receive an acknowledgement when they interact with
your application. This can include a progress bar, a message, a
loading animation, a button changing colours or sound. By providing
user with immediate feedback, they never have to worry that their
action was not recorded.
Consistency in user interface design is another key concept.
Users who have used some parts of your application should be able
to predict how other parts of your application will work. Similarly,
items should generally remain in the same place, be the same size
and have the same colour across your screens.
Figure 1.6: Buttons with inconsistent positions can create frustrated users
The nal concept is to accommodate different users. Users can
differ according to:
What they want from your application.
Their skills and experience.
Their ability to use your application.
The tools they are most comfortable with.
Their expectations.
If you want all these users to enjoy using your application, you need to
carefully consider each element of your application.
MULTI-FORM USER INTERFACES

To create a multi-form (or multi-screen) user interface, you need to
follow three steps:
Create the second form
Open the second form
Pass data between the forms
The example below shows how to create a second form.
Example 1.5 Creating a form
Load the project FriendBookLogin

You will see this form has been created for you.
To a create a new form:
1. Open the File menu in RAD Studio.
2. Select the New option, the click on the Form – Delphi option.
3. You should see a new form open in your project, and Unit2.pas appear in the
Project Manager panel.
4. Save this unit in the same folder as your project and give the name SignUp-u.
5. You can now edit the second form by clicking on its Design tab.
6. Copy the design as illustrated:
Example 1.6 Linking forms
To link forms in a Delphi application:

1. Find the USES statement at the top of your rst form’s FriendBookLogin_u
code .
2. Add the name of the unit SignUp_u to the uses section. This allows your rst
form to access your second form.
3. In the OnClick event of the [Go To SignUp] button add the second form’s Show
method frmSignUp.Show.
4. To close the second form, either click on the [Close] button in the top-right
corner or run the form’s Close method frmSignUp.Close.
5. Experiment by changing the frmSignUp.Show to frmSignUp.Showmodal.
Explain in your own words how these two instructions differ.
Once you have created your second form, you need to link the two
forms so that you can swap between them.
The nal step is to pass information between the forms. There are two
different ways to do this:
By including a unit in the USES section, you gain access to its
visible variables through the form e.g. frmSignUp.iNumber. You also
gain access to the properties of its components directly e.g.
frmSignUp.lblName.Text.
By saving the data in an external le (such as a text le), any unit can
read the data from the le.
In most situations, you will use the rst option to share data between
forms. However, saving the data to a le can be useful if the data
needs to be stored permanently.
By using these techniques to create new forms, link the forms and
share data between the forms, you can add any number of forms to an
application. This helps you to create a more organised application
where each form serves a speci c purpose.
DYNAMIC USER INTERFACES

Dynamic user interfaces are interfaces in which some or all of the user
interface components are created using code or while the application
is running. By creating user interface components using code, you can
dynamically update your user interface based on user decisions,
amount of data available or on certain conditions being met.
The following section will look at the different ways to create visual and
interactive components.
VISUAL COMPONENTS
To create a non-interactive component using code, you need to follow
three steps:
Declare an empty variable of the component’s class.
Create the component and assign it to the empty variable.
Use the component variable to assign values to the required
properties.
For example, when creating a TLabel component, you should start by

declaring a global label variable.
Declaring global components

var
frmMain: TfrmMain;
lblDynamicLabel : TLabel;
BUILDING EFFECTIVE USER

INTERFACES
v=7LWiM7OJick
Next, you should use the TLabel class’s Create method to create and
assign a label to this variable.
Creating the component
procedure
TfrmDynamicItems.btnCreateLabelClick(Sender:
TObject);
begin
lblDynamicLabel := TLabel.Create(Self);
end;
Finally, you need to set the properties of the label to ensure it is visible
to the user.
Standard label properties

lblDynamicLabel.Parent := Self;
lblDynamicLabel.Text := 'Hello, World!';
lblDynamicLabel.Top := 100;
lblDynamicLabel.Left := 100;
lblDynamicLabel.Width := 100;
lblDynamicLabel.Height := 20;
The table below lists a few of the most important properties.

INTERACTIVE COMPONENTS
Creating an interactive component during run–time with an event (such
as an OnClick, OnChange or OnTimer event), can be done in seven
steps:
Declare the component variable.
Create the component and assign it to the variable.
Set the component properties.
Declare the name of a custom procedure in the public section of
your form.
Add the (Sender: TObject) parameter to the procedure’s name to
identify the type of component.
Create the custom procedure for your event in the code.
Assign the name of the procedure to the appropriate event property
(for example, the OnClick property).
The rst three steps of this procedure are identical to those of visual
components.
For the fourth step, you need to add the name of the custom event
handler, that will be linked to your interactive component’s event, to the
public section of your code. The public section can be found inside the
type section, and above the global variables and implementation
sections. The image below shows a custom procedure called
ButtonClick added to the public section. .
Figure 1.7: A custom procedure in the public section
As shown in the image above, all custom event handlers must have
TObject parameter called Sender.
The next step is to create the custom event handler, which is

technically a method linked to your form. This can be done in the same
way as the custom procedures created in the previous unit. However,
since this procedure is a form method that forms part the form, it
needs to include the full name of the form before the procedure name.
The code below shows an example of the ButtonClick form procedure.
Dynamic OnClick method
procedure TfrmMain.ButtonClick(Sender:
TObject);
begin
ShowMessage('Hello, Button!');
end;
Finally, the method name (excluding the “TfrmMain” part) can be

assigned to the appropriate event property when the button is created.
btnDynamic := TButton.Create(Self);
btnDynamic.Parent := Self;
btnDynamic.Text := 'Click me!';
btnDynamic.Left := 10;
btnDynamic.Top := 10;
btnDynamic.OnClick := ButtonClick;
Example 1.7 Photo Bomb
At the start of the 21st century when most computers were still using Windows XP,
the most common type of virus was a virus that caused infected computers to
automatically open hundreds of new windows containing advertisements. These
windows would ood the user’s screen and open more quickly than they could be
closed. Since most of these advertisements were for adult-only websites, these
viruses were especially embarrassing for their victims!
For this application, you will simulate these old viruses. To start the virus, the user
will enter the name of an image and click on a button with the text [Activate Virus].
This button will increase the size of the form and create a new copy of the image
every few milliseconds. The position of each image should be randomly selected
inside the form.
You can use your own image or the teacher will provide the stop.bmp image to you.
Take note, this image must be placed in your application’s win32\debug folder.
The project should be saved in the folder called 01 – Photo Bomb.
Solution
For this application, you can create a very simple user interface. Even though it is
not visible, this interface includes a disabled timer.
Once the [Activate Virus] button is clicked, the following OnClick event is run.
Activate Virus OnClick event

procedure
TfrmPhotoBomb.btnActivateVirusClick(Sender:
TObject);
begin
frmPhotoBomb.Height := 640;
frmPhotoBomb.Width := 800;
tmrTimer.Enabled := True;
end;
This event simply resizes the form and enables the timer. Once the timer has been
enabled, the following OnTimer event activates every few milliseconds (based on
the timer’s interval).
OnTimer event
procedure TfrmPhotoBomb.tmrTimerTimer(Sender:
TObject);
var
iRandomTop, iRandomLeft : Integer;
imgPhoto : TImage;
begin
randomize;
iRandomTop := Random(frmPhotoBomb.Height) –
150;
iRandomLeft := Random(frmPhotoBomb.Width) –
150;
imgPhoto := TImage.Create(Self);
imgPhoto.Parent := Self;
imgPhoto.Top := iRandomTop;
imgPhoto.Left := iRandomLeft;
imgPhoto.Width := 300;
imgPhoto.Height := 300;
imgPhoto.Picture.LoadFromFile(edtImageName.Te
xt);
end;
Looking at this code, you start by randomly selecting a coordinate for the top and
left properties of the image. These positions are based on the height and width of
the form minus half the height and width of the image. This will ensure that at least
half the height and width of the image is always visible, regardless of the randomly
selected position.
The next step is to dynamically create the image. This includes setting all the
standard properties for the image, including the image’s parent, top, left, width,
height properties, and using the Picture.LoadFromFile( ) method.
Activity 1.4
Answer the following questions in your own words.

1.4.1 List and describe four principles of user interface design.
1.4.2 What are the three steps needed to create a multi-form application?
1.4.3 List ve common properties that should be set when dynamically creating a
label.
1.4.4 What is the syntax for an OnClick event declaration used with a dynamically
created button?
Activity 1.5
Create the following multi-form application:

1.5.1 The project has two forms.
1.5.2 Each form contains a textbox with a default value and a button.
1.5.3 When the button on the rst form is pressed:
a. swap the values between the two textboxes.
b. hide the active rst form and display the inactive second form.
UNIT
1.5 Databases
When programmers want to save data, their rst choice is to use a

database. This section will look at ve parts of using a database with
your application:
Creating a database
Connecting a Delphi project to a database
Reading data from a database
Writing data to a database
Using the data from a database
Modifying/manipulating the data from a database
CREATING A DATABASE
The example below shows you how to create a simple, single-table
database.
Take note
When creating mock data for a

database, it is useful to use a site
such as Mockaroo Random data
generator.
https://mockaroo.com/
DATABASES IN DELPHI
v=dwb0wv6IJqA
Example 1.8 Creating a database
To create an Access database:

1. Open Microsoft Access from the Start Menu.
2. Double click on the Blank database option in the main window.
3. In the window that opens, click on the Open icon .
4. Select an appropriate folder to save your database and click OK.
5. Select Microsoft Access Database (2002-2003) as the le type.
6. Enter the name of your database in the File name text box.
7. Click OK to close the window, then click on the Create button to create the
database.
8. Find the Table 1 table in the All Access Objects panel on the left side of
Access.
9. Right click on this table and select the Rename option.

10. Enter the name of your table and press Enter.
11. Inside the table, click on the Click to Add option at the top of the table.
12. Select the eld type then enter a name for the eld.
13. Continue adding elds to your table until all elds have been added.
14. Enter values into these elds to create new records.
15. Save the database in the same folder as your application and close Microsoft
Access.
CONNECTING TO A DATABASE
To connect to a database in Delphi, you will need to use three invisible
components:
TADOConnection: Creates a connection to an external database.
TADOTable: Uses the database connection to connect to a speci c
table inside your database.
TDataSource: Create a connection between your TADOTable and
Delphi visual components.
The rst two of the components can be found from the dbGo list in
RAD Studio’s Tool Palette, while the DataSource component can be
found from the Data Access list.
These components should not be added directly to a unit, but rather to
a data module. A data module is a special form or container to keep all
the database components organised and together. By separating the
database connections from any form, you can import the database
into each form through the “uses” section.
Figure 1.8: The dbGo list from the Tool Palette
Example 1.9 Adding a data module
To add a data module to your project:

1. In the Project Manager panel in the top right corner of the screen, right click
on the .exe project le.
2. Select the Add New option and click on Other.
3. Inside the New Items window, select the Data Module option and click OK.
4. This will add a new data module to your project.
5. Save the data module in your project folder and rename the data module form
(for example, dbmName).
6. Select your main form and open the Code screen.
7. Add the data module’s name (e.g. dbmName) to the USES section of your main
form’s code.
Once you have created the data module, you can add the database
connection components to it.
Example 1.10 Adding database connection components
To add the database connection components:

1. Add a TADOConnection component to the data module and change the name,
for example, conCards.
2. Change the connection’s LoginPrompt property to False to avoid receiving a
login prompt every time you run the application.
3. Double click on the connection component in your data module. This will open
the Connection String window.
4. Click on the [Build] button.

5. In the Data Link Properties window, select the Microsoft Jet 4.0 OLE DB
Provider (.mdb database) or Microsoft Database Engine (.accdb database)
option and click Next.
6. In the Connection tab, enter your database name and extension in the textbox.
7. Select your database and click Open for the .mdb database option.
8. In the Connection tab click on the Test Connection button. You should receive a
message stating that the test connection succeeded.
9. Click OK, then click OK again.
Now that the database has been connected to your Delphi project, you can add a
connection to a speci c table. To do this:
1. Add a TADOTable component to your data module.
2. Click on the dropdown list next to the Connection property of your table and
select the name of your database connection component.
3. Change the value of the TableName property to the name of the table you are
connecting to.
4. Change the table’s Active property to True.
5. Add a TDataSource component to your application.
6. Change its DataSet property to the name of your TADOTable component.
7. Save your application.
You now have a connection directly to a table on your database.
READING DATA FROM A DATABASE

Once a database connection has been made, you can start using and
displaying the data in your application. The easiest way to do this is to
display the database table as a table (or TDBGrid component) in
Delphi. The TDBGrid component can be added from the Data Controls
list in the Tool Palette.
Figure 1.9: The TDBGrid component in the Grids list
Example 1.11 Using the grid component
To link a database table to a grid component:

1. Add a TDBGrid to your form.
2. Select the Grid component and change its DataSource property to the name of
your TDataSource component.
3. Save and test our application. If all the connections were made correctly, you
should now see the data from your database table appear on your grid
component.
WRITING DATA TO A DATABASE

To add a record to a database, you will use two of the TADOTable
component’s methods.
By using the append or insert method, an empty row is added to the
end of your database. You can then set the values in this row, much
like you would change the values of a variable.
Adding values to database elds

tblCards.Append;
tblCards[‘fieldName1’] := 'Hello';
tblCards[‘fieldName2’] := 'World';
tblCards.Post;
Take note, the eld names are placed inside single-quotation marks,
inside square brackets, after the table name. This syntax will always be
used to access speci c elds in a table.
USING THE DATA FROM A DATABASE

To use the data from a database (without rst showing it in a grid), you
use an algorithm that is similar to the algorithms used to read text les:
Selecting the rst record of the database.
Create a while loop that runs until you reach the end of the le.
Inside the loop, read the relevant elds for your application.
Using these values, manipulate the data as needed by your
application.
Finally, move to the next record and repeat the process.
The table below shows the table methods that allow you to iterate
through the data.
Once you have selected the correct record, you can use the
tableName[‘ eldName’] syntax to read the elds’ data. The code below
shows an example of these methods being used.
Using the data methods

dbmData.tblName.First;
while not dbmData.tblName.Eof do
begin
sValue := dbmData.tblName['fieldName'];
dbmData.tblName.Next;
end;
MODIFYING THE DATA FROM A DATABASE
To modify data saved in a database:
Select the record you want to modify.
Set the record to edit mode (using the Edit method).
Set the new values for the record.
Post the new values to the database.
The following code shows how this can be done, using the Locate
method to select the correct record.
Modifying data
dbmData.tblName.First;
dbmData.tblName.Locate('fieldName',
searchValue, []);
dbmData.tblName.Edit;
dbmData.tblName['fieldName'] := newValue;
dbmData.tblName.Post;
To see how a database can be used in practice, work through the

following example.
Example 1.12 Big Bucks setup
You and a group of friends have decided to create Big Bucks, an application to
track debts within your circle of friends. The application will record every payment
between friends and automatically determine if a payment is a new loan or a
repayment.
To create Big Bucks:
1. Open a new application and save it in the folder 01 – Big Bucks.
2. Create the following user interface.
The box on the right of the table is a TStringGrid component called grdBigBucks.
3. Create a new data module called bigBucks_d.pas.
4. Change the name property of the data module to dbmBigBucks.
5. Add a TADOConnection component to the data module (called conBigBucks)
and a TADOTable component to the data module (called tblBigBucks).
6. Add a TDataSource component to the data module called sorBigBucks.
7. Copy the BigBucks.mdb database from your teacher to your project’s folder.
8. Select the conBigBucks connection and click on the [Edit ConnectionString]
button at the bottom left of the Object Inspector.
9. Click on the Build button.
10. Select the Microsoft Jet 4.0 OLE DB Provider option and click Next.
11. Use the … button to select the “BigBucks.mdb” database then click on the
[Test Connection] button.
12. If the test is successful, click on the OK button, then click on the OK button in
the Connection String window.
13. Change the connection’s LoginPrompt property to False and the Connected
property to True.
14. Select the tblBigBucks table component.
15. Change the Connection property to conBigBucks, the TableName property to
Payments and the Active property to True.
16. Select the sorBigBucks component and set the DataSet property to
tblBigBucks.
17. Open the code editor of the bigBucks_u unit.
18. Add bigBucks_d to the USES section of the code. This imports the data
module into your unit.
uses
Winapi.Windows, Winapi.Messages, System.SysUtils, System.Variants,
System.Classes, Vcl.Controls, Vcl.Forms, Vcl.Dialogs, Vcl.StdCtrls,
Vcl.Grids, bigBucks_d;
19. Select the grdBigBucks component and set the DataSource property to
sorBigBucks.
20. Save and run your application. You should see the headings from your
Payments table in your string grid.
Congratulations, you have just created the database connection for your
application. In the next activity, you will create the code that uses this database.
Example 1.13 Big Bucks code
In the previous example, you set up the database connection for your Big Bucks
application. In this example, you will allow users to add a payment of money
between two friends. This payment will have one of three impacts:
If no current debt exists between the two friends, the payment will record a new
debt between the friends.
If receiver already owes the sender money, an additional debt will be created.
If the sender owes the receiver money, the payment will be used to rst pay-off
this debt (and any other debts that are found). If money is left over, a new debt
will be created between the sender and receiver.
To create this application:

1. Open the project saved in your 01 – Big Bucks folder.
2. Save the values entered into the three text boxes into variables called sSender,
sReceiver and rRemainder.
3. Add the following conditional statement to your code.
Appending condition
if rAmount > 0 then
begin
dbmBigBucks.tblBigBucks.Append;
dbmBigBucks.tblBigBucks['sender'] := sSender;
dbmBigBucks.tblBigBucks['receiver'] :=
sReceiver;
dbmBigBucks.tblBigBucks['payment'] :=
rAmount;
dbmBigBucks.tblBigBucks['creation_date'] :=
Now;
dbmBigBucks.tblBigBucks.Post;
end;
This conditional statement checks if the amount in rAmount is positive before
adding the data to the database. While this condition may not be relevant right
now, it will be used later to check if there is any money left after a repayment was
made. It is important to remember that, when you add a record to a database, start
with the Append (or Insert) function and end with the Post method. The lines in
between these two statements specify the values that need to be added to the
different database elds.
4. Save and test your application. You should now be able to add debts to the
database.
The next step is to check if a payment can be made against an existing debt before
any new debts are made. To do this:
5. Before you append the data, read the rst record of the database. This can be
done using the dbmBigBucks. tblBigBucks.First method.
6. Create a WHILE-DO loop that repeats while the database is not at the end of
the le and while rAmount is larger than 0.
7. At the end of the WHILE-DO loop, use the table’s Next method to move to the
next record in the database. Without this line, the WHILE-DO loop may
continue running forever.
WHILE-DO-loop
dbmBigBucks.tblBigBucks.First;
while (not dbmBigBucks.tblBigBucks.Eof) and
(rAmount > 0) do
begin
// Check if an existing debt exists between
the sender and receiver
// Check if the existing debt is equal to the
current payment
// Check if the existing debt is larger than
the current payment
// Check if the existing debt is smaller than
the current payment
dbmBigBucks.tblBigBucks.Next;
end;
8. Create a conditional statement inside the WHILE-DO loop to check if the

payment is a repayment of debt.
You know that the payment is a repayment if the database contains a record
where the current sender was the receiver, while the current receiver was the
sender. This means you need to read each record inside the while statement
and see if this condition is met.
IF-THEN statement
if (sSender = dbmBigBucks.tblBigBucks['receiver']) and (sReceiver =
dbmBigBucks.tblBigBucks['sender']) then
begin
// Store value of existing debt
// Check if the existing debt is equal to the current payment
// Check if the existing debt is larger than the current payment
// Check if the existing debt is smaller than the current payment
end;
9. When a record is found where this condition is met, store the value of the
payment eld in a variable called rExisting.
10. Create a condition to check if rAmount is greater than or equal to rExisting.
11. Inside the condition, run dbmBigBucks.tblBigBucks.Delete method to delete
the selected record.
12. Set the value of rAmount to equal rAmount minus rExisting.
Cancelling a debt
if rAmount >= rExisting then
begin
dbmBigBucks.tblBigBucks.Delete;
rAmount := rAmount – rExisting;
end;
Taking a look at this code, the condition checks if the amount paid is enough to
fully repay the debt. If it is, the existing debt record is deleted and rAmount is
adjusted to re ect the debt that has been repaid. If there is any money left in
rAmount, the WHILE-DO loop will continue looking through the database to see if
there are additional debts to repay. If there are no debts to repay, the WHILE-DO
loop will exit. Since rAmount is still larger than 0, a new debt will be added to the
database.
13. Save and test your application. You should now be able to remove debts by
making a payment in the opposite direction.
14. Create a condition to check if rExisting is smaller than rAmount. This will mean
that the debt is not fully repaid and needs to be adjusted based on the amount
repaid.
15. Inside the conditional statement, run the command
dbmBigBucks.tblBigBucks.Edit to edit the table.
16. Set the payment eld of the table equal to rExisting minus rAmount.
17. Set the repayment_date eld equal to the date returned by the Now function.
18. Use the Post command to make these changes to the database.
19. Set rAmount equal to 0, since all the money has been used to repay the debt.
Partially repaying a debt

if rAmount < rExisting then
begin
dbmBigBucks.tblBigBucks.Edit;
dbmBigBucks.tblBigBucks['payment'] := rExisting – rAmount;
dbmBigBucks.tblBigBucks['repayment_date'] := Now;
dbmBigBucks.tblBigBucks.Post;
rAmount := 0;
end;
Since rAmount will always be 0 for a partial repayment, the WHILE-DO loop will end
once this payment is made and no additional changes will be made to the
database.
20. Save and test your application. You should now be able to add debts, fully
repay debts and partially repay debts.
Congratulations, you just created an application that can easily store hundreds (or
even thousands) of money transfers between people! To do this, you needed to
create a database connection, add information to the database, read information
from the database, and modify existing data on the database.
Databases will be covered in more detail in Chapter 4.

Activity 1.6
Answer the following questions using pen and paper.

1.6.1 Which two Delphi components are needed to connect to a database and
database table?
1.6.2 Which Delphi component can be used to display the data from a database?
1.6.3 Write down Delphi commands to do the following:
a. Select the next record in a table.
b. Set the value of the database eld Name to Kagiso.
c. Check if the database eld Number has a value of 7.
d. Save changes made to the database.
e. Read each record in a table.
CONSOLIDATION ACTIVITY Chapter 1: Programming fundamentals
QUESTION 1
Komani Game Reserve in the Eastern Cape offers accommodation and the chance
to see three of the ‘Big Five’ animals. Do the following:
Open the incomplete program in the 01 – Question1 folder.
Compile and execute the program. The program has no functionality currently.
Follow the instructions below to complete the code for QUESTION 1.1 to
QUESTION 1.5.
1.1 A picture le called elephant.png has been included in the root folder of the
Question1_p Delphi project. Write code for the following:
• Display the text “KOMANI GAME RESERVE” on pnlHeader.
• Change the colour of pnlHeader to black.
• Change the font colour of pnlHeader to white.
• Display the elephant.png picture on the imgQ1_1 component.
• Disable btnQ1_1.
Example output:
1.2 The game reserve is situated on a rectangular piece of land and the
dimensions of the reserve are as follows:
• length: 40.4 km
• width: 27.8 km
The values for the length and width of the game reserve are stored in two
global constants called dReserveLength and dReserveWidth, respectively.
Calculate the perimeter of the game reserve and display the result on
lblQ1_2A in the following format:
PERIMETER: <calculated perimeter> km
The surface area of a rectangle is calculated with the following formula: A =

W×L
Calculate the surface area of the game reserve and display the result on
lblQ1_2B in the following format:
SURFACE AREA: <calculated surface area>

square km
Example output:
1.3 Visitors who want to spend more than 1 day in the reserve have a choice
between the following two accommodation options:
Write code for the following:

• Check whether the user has indicated that accommodation is required in
the cbxAccommodation component.
• In case the user has indicated that accommodation is required, check
which accommodation option was chosen in rgpChaletOption and extract
the number of nights he/she needs accommodation for from
sedNumNights.
• Calculate and display the cost of accommodation on pnlQ1_3. If the user
did NOT indicate that accommodation is required, display the text “NO
ACCOMMODATION” on pnlQ1_3.
Example output:
1.4 The game reserve hosts three of the Big Five. These are elephants, buffalo
and lions. Visitors are able to report sightings, which give other visitors an
idea of which animals there are to see on a given day. Sightings are compiled
into a string of keys (single characters) that indicate which animals have been
sighted.
Each key in the string represents the following animals:
Buffalo and elephant sightings are common, but lion sightings are rare.
• Extract the sightings from edtSightings.
• Use the string of keys to create a list of animals sighted and display this
list on redQ1_4.
• Count the number of lion sightings and display the result on a message
box in the following format:
Lion sightings: <number of lion sightings>
Example of output if EEBEBEEBLEELB was entered as the sightings string:

Example of output if EBBEBL was entered as the sightings string:
1.5 Potential visitors need to be able to make a reservation. A reference code

needs to be generated for each reservation.
Reference codes are compiled as follows:
• The rst part of the reference code is a hash-symbol ( # ).
• The second part of the reference code is a random number ranging from
1000 to 9999 (both inclusive).
• The third part of the reference code consists of the rst two letters of the
visitor’s surname. Both letters are in UPPER CASE.
• Test if the visitor’s surname is entered in the edtSurname component. If
edtSurname is empty, display an appropriate error message and set the
focus to edtSurname.
• If the visitor’s surname is entered, extract it from edtSurname and
generate a reference code.
• Display the reference code on pnlQ1_5.
Example output:
QUESTION 2 Database manipulation

This section consists of two questions. The following important notes are applicable
to both questions:
You are NOT allowed to modify or add to the supplied data in any way.
Good programming techniques must be applied when coding your solutions.
NO marks will be assigned for hardcoding. Use control structures and variables
where necessary.
NO FILTERS MAY BE USED.
SCENARIO:
The HealthActive gym is currently running a healthy living program where a
member’s health status is captured and checked.
The Health.mdb database contains one table called Members.

The Members table is structured with the following elds:
Example data from the Members table:

Take note
Connection code has been

provided.
When the btnDBRestore button
is clicked, the data in the
database will be restored to the
original data.
The name of the table to be
used in your code must be
tblMember, which is the
TADOTable object connected to
the database.
Do the following:
• Compile and execute the program in the 01 – Question2 folder. The
program currently has limited functionality
• Complete the code for each question as described in [Question 2.1] and
[Question 2.2].
• The program contains a graphical user interface with two-tab sheets
labelled [Question 2.1 ] and [Question 2.2].
2.1 Data processing
Select tab sheet [Question 2.1 ], which displays the following user interface
when the program is run:
Complete the code to meet the requirements speci ed in QUESTION 2.1.1 to
QUESTION 2.1.3
2.1.1 Radiogroup [2.1.1]
Write code for the OnClick event of the radiogroup that will sort the contents
of the Members table and display it on the database grid called dbgTable as
follows:
• Radiobutton 1: From newest to oldest according to the join date.
• Radiobutton 2: Ascending order of customer names and surnames.
2.1.2 The user will be asked to enter an account number. Write code to
search the database table to check if the member’s account number
appears in the table. If it is found, the date on which the member
joined the program must be displayed in the following format:
Example of output if Account number: DreS284 is typed into
edtSearch.
If the record is not found, a suitable message must be displayed.

2.1.3 A person’s body mass index (BMI) is a measure for indicating
nutritional status in adults. It is de ned as a person’s weight in
kilograms divided by the square of the person’s height in metres
(kg/m2). For example, an adult who weighs 70 kg and whose height
is 1.75 m will have a BMI of 22.9.
70 (kg)/1.752 (m2) = 22.9 BMI
For adults over 20 years old, BMI falls into one of the following
categories:
Write code to display a list of all members their BMI rounded to 1

decimal and their respective nutritional health status, neatly in
columns on the redOutput:
Example output:
2.1.4 Write code to calculate and display on the redOutput which
percentage of male members are smokers.
Display:
• the number of male members who are smokers
• the percentage of the male members who are smokers rounded
to two decimals places
• the total number of members in the table.
Example of output:
2.2 Data maintenance

Select tab sheet [Question 2.2], which displays the following user
Complete the code to meet the requirements speci ed in QUESTION 2.2.1 to
QUESTION 2.2.3.
2.2.1 The email address for the member with member number PraM786
has been incorrectly captured as mpragnell2n@studiopress.c. Add
code to correct the email address to mpragnel@studpress.com
2.2.2 You want the user to be able to delete the record that he/she selects.
Write the code to delete the current record from the table. Keep track
of the name of the member that will be deleted. Display a message
once the record has been deleted, as follows (if the third record in the
table was selected):
2.2.3 The details of a new member have been supplied in the appropriate
components. Complete the code to insert this member into a new
record in the table. The account number must be constructed using
the rst 3 letters of the surname, the member’s initial and any
random 3 digit number (between 100 and 999).
QUESTION 3
SCENARIO
You have been asked by the organisers of a Gymnastics competition in Strand to
complete a program to manipulate the numbers of learners from 10 schools in
the vicinity who are taking part.
Open the project in the folder 01 – Question 3 folder.

The incomplete main form unit called Question3_u.pas
Currently the program has no functionality.
An incomplete form class Question3_u is provided with the following graphical user
interface:
Complete the code for each section of QUESTION 3 as speci ed in QUESTION 3.1
to QUESTION 3.4 below.
In the given program the following two global parallel arrays have been created:
a String array called arrSchools with the names of the ten schools that have
registered to take part.
an Integer array called arrNumGymnasts with the number of the learners from
each school who will be competing.
3.1 When this button is clicked a call to the DisplayArrays procedure is made.
Do the following:
• Create a procedure called DisplayArrays that will receive the heading as a
parameter.
In the implementation of the procedure:
• display the heading as indicated in the parameter
• loop through the two given arrays and display the information in two
columns in the rich edit redOutput, as indicated in the btnDisplayClick
event handler
• Call the procedure and use the heading “The schools participating” in the
parameter to display the information.
• Add code to determine and display the total number of gymnasts.
Example output:
3.2 The organisers want a list of the schools with the number of gymnasts sorted
from lowest to highest as indicated in the screen shot below. Write the code
to sort the arrays to achieve this.
Use the DisplayArrays procedure with the appropriate heading as a
parameter to display the sorted list.
Example output:
3.3 The organisers want a code for each of the schools. The code consists of the
rst letter of each of the words of the school’s name and a random number in
the range 100 to 999 (both included), for example, RGHS367 for Rhenish
Girls’ High School.
Do the following:
Create a function called GenerateCode that will receive the name of the school
as a parameter and return the generated code.
In the implementation section of the function extract the rst letter from each word
in the name of the school and then add a randomly generated number between
100 and 999 (both included).
Take note
Your code should provide for the

fact that each user might type
the name of the school in a
different case (lower and/or
upper case)
If the name of the school was
not found, an appropriate
message should be displayed in
the rich edit.
In the btnCodeClick event handler loop through the array called arrSchools, call the
GenerateCode function for each of the schools in the list and display the generated
codes as indicated in the screenshot below:
3.4 You want the user to type in the name of a school and then determine and
display how many learners from that school are competing. Use an Inputbox
to get the name of the school to search for, and then display the number of
learners competing in redOuput, as indicated in the screenshot below.
Example output:
QUESTION 4
SCENARIO:
Your principal asked you as an IT student to help write a program which will
determine whether anyone in your school has a birthday on any given day. He
wishes to use the program every morning before school to check whose
birthdays he has to announce today.
Do the following:
Compile and execute the program in the 01 – Question 4 folder.
Complete the code for each question, as described in QUESTION 4.1 to
QUESTION 4.3.
Supplied GUI:
4.1 Add code to the On Create event handler of the form to do the following:
4.1.1 Display the current (today’s) date in the edit boxes provided
4.1.2 Check if the le, Birthdays.txt exists. Display a suitable message if the
le does not exist.
The text le contains data in the following format:
Name,Surname,Gender,Year-Month-Day
Example of the rst 5 lines:
Noluvo,Mdlungwana,F,2001-07-12
Laureka,Wallace,F,2000-03-01
Michelle,van Heerden,F,2001-05-23
Maria,Kok,F,2000-09-19
Brewster,Attew,M,2001-12-09
4.2 Work on the [Check Birthdays] tab sheet. Add code to the event handler of
btnDisplay.
4.2.1 Create suitable variables for each component of a line from the text
le
4.2.2 Open the Birthdays.txt le for reading. Assign this le to the given
global text le variable, tfBirthdays.
4.2.3 Ensure that all the data is removed from redBirthdays when the
button is clicked.
4.2.4 Make use of variables to store the current year, month and day.
Ensure that the program will still work if any other day of the year is
entered.
4.2.5 Loop through the text le and determine if any of the entries are on
the date entered in the edit boxes. Display the name, surname and
age of the records that match.
4.2.6 Determine the total number of birthdays for this day and display it
with the output.
Example output: (for the date 2018/08/16)
4.3 Study the interface for the [AddBirthday] tab sheet
4.3.1 Write code for the [Add Birthday] button to extract all the information
from the components.
Add validation to check that only ‘M’ or ‘F’ was added to edtGender.
Display a message if anything else was added.
4.3.2 Once the button is clicked, the student’s information has to be added
to the text le, and a suitable message has to be displayed.
QUESTION 5
5.1 Which type of loop can be used to read each entry in an array?
a. CASE
b. FOR-loop
c. REPEAT-loop
d. WHILE-DO loop
5.2 Determine which of the following are objects, properties or events.
5.3 Give an example of a binary variable.
5.4 Name ONE way of preventing programming errors.
5.5 A user is required to input a FOUR-character security code which contains
ONE alphabetical character and THREE digits. The rst character must be
alphabetical, for example “D845”.
Write an algorithm, using pseudocode, to validate the code for the correct
format once the code has been entered. NOTE: Use at least ONE loop must
be part of your solution.
CHAPTER UNITS
Learning outcomes
At the end of this chapter you should be able to

describe the class as a data type
discuss the different access speci ers
describe attributes and methods as part of a class
de ne a class:
add attributes to a class
declare and implement methods in a class
instantiate objects of the class
use the object in your application.
OOP IN DELPHI
v=gRUvQglZ5jI
Watch out!
We use analogies to describe the

concept of an object; don’t get too
attached to these analogies. They
only serve to illustrate a point.
Instead, concentrate on drawing out
the abstract nature of an object as we
apply an everyday term to a
programming technique.
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter we will look at Object-Oriented Programming (OOP)
in more detail. To understand OOP and user-de ned classes, think
about your national ID card. Each South African citizen is issued with
an ID smart card using an ID blueprint.
Figure 2.1: An ID card is like a custom class
New words
Object-Oriented Programming
(OOP) – refers to a type of computer
programming (software design) in
which programmers de ne not only
the data type of a data structure, but
also the types of operations
(functions) that can be applied to the
data structure
Example of some of the details captured for your ID:

photo
name
surname
identity number
nationality
date of birth
We refer to these data items as elds.
The ID smart card can be:

scanned to transfer the data on it
presented to verify the person’s identity.
New words
attributes – the data elds of the

class
behaviour – the code that provides
the interaction with the attributes
instances of the class – a data type
that describes the attributes and
behaviour of the object to be model
electronically
encapsulation – the grouping of
attributes and behaviour in one entity
We say the elds used to gather data are attributes of the card and
what the card can be used for Is the behaviour of the card.
The attributes and behaviour form a blueprint for creating an ID smart
card. We refer to the blueprint as a class. The instance of a class is
referred to as an object.
From the one blueprint each South African citzen can get an Identity
Smart Card i.e many Instances of the class or card objects can be
created. Like an array a class can have many data items, however
whereas an array can only have data Items of the same type whereas a
class can have data items of different data types. As a record in a
database has data items of different types, so does the data items of a
class. The grouping of data together with the functions to interact with
the data is called encapsulation.
OOP-techniques enable programmers to:

create independent modules that are not in uenced by other parts of
the program
create reusable code
improve the integrity of a program and its data.
In this chapter you will learn how to declare classes, implement its
methods, instantiate an object of the class and use the object’s
methods in an application.
UNIT
2.1 De ning a user-de ned class
After the introduction, you might think that classes are a brand-new
concept that you will have to learn from scratch. Fortunately this is not
the case. You have been using multiple classes in every single program
you have created, like the TForm class. If you create a new Delphi
project and open the code, you will see the following lines near the top
of your code.
USER DEFINED OBJECTS

v=OuMu4dgJZ8M
Figure 2.2: TForm1 class
By looking at the declaration of the TForm1 class above, you can see
the basic structure of a class de nition, using the key words: Type,
class, private, public and end. These are the essential keywords for
declaring a class and implementation to provide it with behaviour.
TForm1 has TForm as its base class.
The keyword, private, marks the section where the attributes and
methods are declared, that should not be accessible from outside
the class.
The keyword, public, marks the section where we declare methods
that serves as the interface to the internal features of the class.
These methods are accessible from outside the class.
The implementation section is where all the events, procedures and
functions are placed. Any active code that you want to execute
should be placed in this section.
Take note
Notice how the Form1 variable is

declared to be of type TForm1. An
instance of class TForm1, also called
an object, can be assigned to Form1.
DECLARING A CLASS
The code block below shows the basic structure of a class declaration.
Class declaration syntax

type
ClassName = class(optional BaseClass)
Private
//declare attributes and private methods here
Public
//declare public methods here
End;
In order to understand whether to declare a public or a private method,

you need to understand how access speci ers work. As their name
suggests, access speci ers tell your class which methods should be
visible (or accessible) to units outside the class, and which methods
should only be visible inside the class.
New words
Access specifiers – is a de ning

code element that can be determine
which elements of a program are
allowed to access a speci c variable
or other piece of data
There are four types of access speci ers:

Class attributes or elds are only declared in the private section of the
class. This data hiding ensures that access is only given to class
members and protects the integrity of the data.
Once the attributes and methods have been declared, you need to
write code to implement the methods. This is done in the
implementation section. Once the methods are implemented your
class de nition is complete and ready to be tested.
Activity 2.1
Answer the following questions in your own words:

2.1.1 What is a class?
2.1.2 What is an object?
2.1.3 Give an example of two classes that you have used in your programs.
2.1.4 Write down the syntax for declaring a class.
2.1.5 What is the difference between the public and private keywords?
2.1.6 Why should class attributes be private and not public?
2.1.7 Find the errors in the following basic class structure:
implementation
className : class(optional BaseClass);
Private
Attribute1: String;
Method1;
Public
Attribute2: Integer;
Method2;
To de ne a class in Delphi, you need to take the following steps:

create a new unit le that will only contain the code for the class in
the TYPE section name the class
add attributes and methods in the PRIVATE section
add methods in the PUBLIC section
constructor method
accessor (or getters) methods
mutator (or setters) methods
other auxiliary/helper methods
ToString method for quick access to the state of an object.
Read the following case study, which will be used throughout this unit
to look at each of the steps above.
Case Study Second-hand phones
Imagine you are building a web application that facilitates buying and selling
second-hand phones. Once the site is up and running, you expect there to be
hundreds of users selling and buying phones at any time. You will recognise a
phone as an entity similar to the ID-card. Each phone has a number of attributes
you need to record, including the phone’s brand, the phone’s model number, the
seller’s price and the phone’s date of purchase. How would you store this
information?
The best way to store this information is to encapsulate it in a custom class named
TPhone.
Your TPhone class might have the following essential properties:
Brand: String
Model: String
Owner: String
PurchaseDate: TDateTime
Price: Double
Figure 2.3: How would you store the data needed to sell phones?
We could also consider a method to work out the age of the phone. So the buyer
can get a quick feel about the value for money of the offer.
An object of the type TPhone can store the brand, model, owner, purchaseDate and
price, together with methods to access and manipulate it, such as a method that is
able to return the age of the phone.
Once you have de ned the TPhone class, you can create one or more TPhone
objects in your application (or even a list or array of TPhone objects). Each of these
objects will contain a unique set of information and will represent a phone.
CLASS UNIT FILE

The rst step in creating your new application that facilitates buying
and selling second hand phones (see Case study above) is to create a
new unit le for the new class. Just as a data module separates your
data from any speci c form, the unit le separates the class from a
form. This allows you to use the class in multiple forms in a multi-form
application and even in other applications. By separating the class
from the form, you keep the code clean, making it easier to keep track
of your code and reduce the repetition of code.
In order to create an object to be used in your application, a design

speci cation for your model needs to be written. This is then captured
in a class diagram. The class diagram lists the attributes and behaviour
for all objects of the class.
In the case of our PhoneClass, the formal class diagram looks like this:
As we develop the app, you will see how this directs the process.
A class de nition is a coded version of the class diagram with all

methods implemented. Once the class has been de ned, it can be
used in an application like any other data type.
New words
reusability – is an important OOP

principle.
Activity 2.2 De ning classes: Pen and paper
In each case, clearly indicate where in the class unit le the code to declare the class,
the attributes and methods should be placed.
Do not implement the methods.
2.2.1 A TCar class containing the attributes Model, Brand, Year, RetailPrice and the
following methods:
a. A default and a parameterised constructor.
b. A getDetailedModel function.
c. A setRetailPrice procedure and getRetailPrice function.
d. A toString function.
e. A getVATPrice function.
Name the unit CarClass.
2.2.2 A TSong class containing the attributes Artist, Song, Album, TrackNumber and
Duration (in seconds) and the following methods:
a. A Default and a parameterised constructor.
b. Getters and setters for all attributes.
c. A toString method.
d. A getQuickReference method that returns a string.
e. A getMinuteDuration method that returns a string.
Name the unit SongClass.
2.2.3 A TQuadratic class for the class diagram given below:
Name the unit QuadraticClass.

2.2.4 A TCone class according to the partial Cone class diagram given below.
Complete the declaration of the class, adding getters and setters that you may
need.
Name the unit ConeClass.
Activity 2.3 De ning classes: Delphi projects
2.3.1 Open the project saved in the carPriceList folder. Add a unit CarClass and
provide code to implement the TCar class you wrote in Activity 2.2.1.
a. Complete the constructor, getters and setters you have generated.
b. The toString method returns a string that displays the lines attribute label:
attribute value below each other.
c. The getDetailedModel function returns a string in the format Year Brand
Model.
d. The getVATPrice function returns the car’s retail price multiplied by 1.15.
2.3.2 Open the project saved in the myPlaylist folder. Add a unit SongClass and
implement the TSong class you wrote in Activity 2.2.2. Complete the class
de nition as follows:
a. Code the constructor, getters and setters you have generated.
b. The toString method returns a string that displays the lines attribute label:
attribute value below each other.
c. The getQuickReference function returns a string in the format
‘Song,~Album~Artist’.
d. The getMinuteDuration function converts the song duration from seconds
to minutes and seconds and returns a string in the format mm:ss.
2.3.3 Open the project saved in the quadraticEquations folder. Add the unit
QuadraticClass and code the class de nition you wrote in Activity 2.2.3.
Implement:
a. The constructors.
b. CalculateDiscriminant.
c. calculateRoots to return the roots in format, ‘x1 = 0.00 : x2 = 0.00’. Use

the formula:
d. HasRealRoots should return true if the discriminant is >= 0.

e. HasRationalRoots should return true if the discriminant is a perfect
square.
f. A toString method to return the quadratic in the form:
Hint: use chr (178) to display superscript 2.

2.3.4 Open the project saved in the coneCalculations folder. Add the unit ConeClass
and code the class de nition you wrote in Activity 2.2.4. Implement the
methods listed in the class diagram and the getters and setters you added.
2.3.5 Update your TPhone class by adding getters for Brand, Model and Owner.
LET’S REVISE
Did you know
Generally, we let the method

calling calculateAge deal with the
display of the age.
Using many short methods reduces
complexity.
Each method should only have one
task.
Did you know
A method name followed by its

parameters is called the method
signature.
Overloading is declaring more than
one method with the same name.
Overloading allows us to have
multiple methods that share the same
name, but with a different number of
parameters and types.
Example:
Public
Constructor create; overload;
Constructor create (brand,
model, owner : String;
purchaseDate : TDateTime;
price : Double/Real);
overload;
UNIT
2.2 Using the class
Before other units in your application can use your class, they need to
import the class unit. Having access to the custom class allows the
application to create objects of the imported class and call its public
methods.
PROGRAM INTERACTION WITH THE CLASS
Activity 2.4 Pen and Paper
2.4.1 Write down the syntax for instantiating a class.
2.4.2 Given is the constructor declaration for a TNGO class:
Constructor create(Name: string; Funds : Double: Donations : Integer; Code:
String); For (a) to (g) below, state whether an accessible NGO object will be
created. If not, then state why.
a. NGO.create(‘Helping Hand’, 23500.00, 50, ‘HH007’);
b. NGO := TNGO.create(‘Helping Hand’, ‘HH007’, 23500.00, 50);
c. NGO := TNGO.create(‘Helping Hand’, 23500.00, 50, ‘HH007’);
d. TNGO := NGO.create(‘Helping Hand’, 23500.00, 50, ‘HH007’);
e. NGO := TNGO.create(‘Helping Hand’, 23500.00, 50);
f. TNGO.create(‘Helping Hand’, 23500.00, 50, ‘HH007’);
g. NGO := TNGO.create(‘Helping Hand’, 23500.00, 50.00, ‘HH007’);
2.4.3 Give a Delphi statement to import the class, NGOClass into the form unit.
2.4.4 How will you ensure that the value of an attribute cannot change after the
object is created?
2.4.5 What is the function of the toString-method?
2.4.6 What criteria will you use to decide if a method belong to the class or not?
2.4.7 Which one of the following is the correct syntax for the signature(header) of a
get-method? Also state why the others are incorrect.
a. Procedure methodName(parameter: datatype);
b. Function methodName(parameter: datatype): dataType;
c. Procedure methodName: dataType;
d. Function methodName: dataType;
Did you know
Non-governmental organisations, or
NGO were rst called such in Article
71 in the Charter of newly formed
United Nations in 1945. While NGOs
have no xed or formal de nition,
they are generally de ned as non-
pro t entities independent of
governmental in uence
Activity 2.5
2.5.1 Open the project saved in the 02 – carPriceList folder. Provide code to:
a. Import the CarClass unit in the frmCar unit.
b. Declare the global variables Car of type TCar and an Integer variable Row
initialised to 1, in the implementation section. Remember the var
keyword.
c. In the [Save] button’s onclick event handler, provide code to:
i. Store the inputs brand, model, year and retail price.
ii. Create the Car object
iii. Call the methods getDetailedModel and getVATPrice to display the
model details and the retail price in the string grid.
Did you know
When using a class, always check for

for potential helper methods. Any
statement or function that will be
used more than once and is only
related to the class data should be
moved to a private helper method
inside the class.
2.5.2 Open the project saved in the 02 – myPlaylist folder. Provide code to:
a. Import the SongClass unit in the frmSong unit.
b. Declare a global variable mySong of type TSong and an Integer variable
Row initialised to 1, in implementation section. Remember the var
keyword.
c. In the [AddtoPlaylist] button’s onclick event handler, provide code to:
i. Store the inputs Artist, Album, Song, TrackNumber and duration.
ii. Create the mySong object.
iii. Call the methods getQuickReference and getMinuteDuration to
display the quick reference and the minute duration in the string grid.
CHALLENGE
2.5.3 The mathematics teacher at school Overcrowded High is requesting your help.
The teacher wants an application that will generate quadratic equations in the
following categories:
those that have rational roots
those that have irrational roots.
He also wants only those equations for which coef cients a, b and c are
non-zero.
The equations and their roots must be sent to a le. The teacher wants to
print the le and give each of the 60 learners a unique set of three
problems to solve.
Open the project HelpMathTeacher in the folder quadraticEquations. The
code for the buttons [Save] and [Shuf e List] has been provided.
You are required to import the QuadraticClass and declare a variable of type
TQuadratic.
In the Make list event-handler, the code to generate permutations of the
coef cients a, b and c is given as three nested loops. Insert code in the
nested loop to do the following:
a. Test for non-zero coef cients.
b. Create a Quadratic object.
c. Check which problem type is selected.
d. Test if the current object meets the selected problem type.
Build a line with the quadratic equation and its roots.
Add this line to the list box.
In b to d above, use the methods of the Quadratic class you imported.
2.5.4 The Maths Literature teacher has asked you to develop an application to help
the learners check their homework based on cones. The App. is required to
calculate three values for a cone:
slant height, surface area and volume given the height and diameter of the
base.
The following buttons have been provided in the Project le inside the 02 –
Cone Calculation:
a. In the form class add code to import the class.
b. Button [Create New Cone]: demonstrates the parameterised constructor.
Use two (2) input boxes to get the parameters required to instantiate the
object, create the object and use the toString method to display the state
of the Cone object in the memo. Code to enable the other buttons is
given.
c. Button [Slant Height]: using the cone created in b, display the slant height
in the memo.
d. Button [Volume]: using the cone created in b, display the volume in the
memo.
e. Button [Surface Area]: using the cone created in b, display the surface
area in the memo.
One of the reasons custom classes are so powerful is that they allow
you to keep lists of objects, with all the data related to each object
stored in the object itself. This is a lot more reliable than creating
multiple parallel lists, as inconsistencies can easily appear in parallel
lists (for example, if an item is deleted from one list but not from the
others).
Our SellMyPhone App. only uses one object at a time and reuses the
object variable for each instatiation. Once a second phone is created
you can’t go back to the rst object to change the price of the phone.
You will have to create another phone object for the same cell phone
and new price. This shortcoming motivates the use of a list to store
objects so that we can use them in a meaningful way.
Did you know
You will not be examined on your

ability to create arrays (or lists) of
objects. However, when creating your
own applications, custom objects will
often be used with arrays and lists.
CONSOLIDATION ACTIVITY Chapter 2: Object-oriented programming
QUESTION 1
1.1 Explain the concept of encapsulation in object-orientated programming.
1.2 What is the purpose of a constructor in object-orientated programming?
1.3 Explain why you would use a getter without setters.
1.4 The following class diagram has been suggested as part of the transport
program to manage their drivers:
f. The minus sign (-) shows that the declaration is private while the plus
sign (+) shows that the declaration is public. Explain the difference
between a public declaration of attributes and a private declaration of
attributes and methods.
g. Write down an example of an auxiliary method from the Driver class.
1.5 De ne object-orientated programming.
QUESTION 2
For this application, open the project saved in the 02 – Question 2. Once done,
save your project in the same folder.
Tourists visiting South Africa often travel to different areas of the country. Normally,
guests to a bed and breakfast (B&B) have to pay the bill for all the extra items they
ordered during their stay when they check out. To provide a service that makes
them more appealing than other B&Bs, the Petersen Group has decided to let their
guests transfer their accumulated extra costs between the guesthouses in each
town. Guests will have to pay the bill for these items when they check out at the
last guesthouse on their journey. They decided that the best way to manage this is
to e-mail a text le indicating the extra costs of the guests to the next guesthouse.
You have been asked to write the program to handle the extra costs of the guests.
The data is stored in a text le named “Extras.txt” in the following format:
GuestNo#GuestName#ExtraType#CostPerItem An example of some of the data in
the text le:
1#Mr G Ferreira#Phone#7.05
2#Mrs L Honeywell#Drinks#71.95
3#Ms I Mendes#Kitchen#39.95
1#Mr G Ferreira#Kitchen#23.95
1#Mr G Ferreira#Drinks#7.15
4#Mr B Khoza#Taxi#127.25
2.1 De ne a class named TExtraItem. Create appropriately named and typed
private elds to hold the following data (suggested eld names are given in
brackets):
• guest number (guestNum)
• item type description (itemType)
• cost per item (cost)
2.2 Write a constructor method that accepts the guest number, the item
description and the cost per item as parameters. All the elds must be
initialised in the constructor.
2.3 Write an appropriately named get method (accessor method) to return the
guest number.
2.4 The company uses a 25% markup on cost per item to determine pro t. Write
a method named calculatePro t that calculates and returns the pro t (that is,
cost*25/100).
2.5 Write a method named calculatePrice that calculates the nal price of the
item (that is, cost + the calculated pro t).
2.6 Write a method named toString that builds and returns a string with
information on the item formatted as follows:
Item type<tab>Cost<tab>Pro t<tab>Final Price
Any numbers must be formatted to two decimal places.
2.7 Create an array named arrItems that holds TExtraItem objects. Write code in
the OnActivate event handler of the form to read information from the text le
Extras.txt according to the following steps:
a. Test if the text le exists. Display a suitable message if the le does not
exist and terminate the program.
b. Use a loop to:
• read a line of text from the text le.
• separate the text into the guest number, item type and cost.
• use this information to create a new TExtraItem object and place the
object in the array named arrItmes.
c. Use a counter eld to keep track of how many items there are in the
array.
2.8 When the user clicks the [List Items] button, the program must do the
following:
a. Allow the user to enter a guest number.
b. Search through the array. Each time an item for the guest is found:
• calculate the pro t using the percentage mark-up and calculate the
nal price.
• display the information using the toString method.
• add the nal price for each item to get a grand total.
c. When the search is complete the program must:
• display the total amount due for the guest.
• display an appropriate message to say that there are no extra
charges for this guest, if no items have been found.
An example of the nal output is shown below:
QUESTION 3
For this application, open the project saved in the 02 – Question 3. Once done,
save your project in the same folder.
A constellation is a group of related stars that covers the night sky. Some stars are
considered to be navigational, while others are passive. A navigational star is used
to assist with calculating direction and movement.
The application you will be using has the following user interface.
3.1 Write code for a constructor method that will receive the name of the star, its
magnitude, its distance from the Earth and the constellation it belongs to as
parameters. Set the FOUR respective attributes to the received parameter
values and initialise the fNavigationalStatus attribute to FALSE.
3.2 Write code to create an accessor method for the constellation attribute
fConstellation.
3.3 Write code for a mutator method called setNavigationalStatus, which will
receive a Boolean value as a parameter and set the navigational status
attribute to the received value.
3.4 Write code for a method called determineVisibility that will determine and
return a description of the visibility of the star. The visibility of a star depends
on its distance from Earth in light years and its magnitude.
Use the following criteria to determine the description of visibility that applies
to a star:
3.5 Write code to create a toString method which returns a string formatted as
follows:
• <name of star> belongs to the <constellation> constellation.
• The star has a magnitude of <magnitude> and is <distance from Earth>
light years away from Earth.
If the star is a navigational star, add the following line:
• <name of star> is a navigational star.
Otherwise, add the line:
• <name of star> is a passive star.
3.6 For the [Instantiate Object] button, the user is required to select the name of
a star in the combo box. Once done, write code to do the following:
a. Extract the name of the selected star from the combo box.
b. Use a conditional loop and search in the text le for the name of the
selected star. The loop must stop when the name of the star has been
found in the le.
c. If the name of the star has been found, do the following:
• Instantiate a TStar object using the objStarX object variable that has
been declared globally as part of the given code.
• Test whether the star is a navigational star using the aNavigationStars
array and set the value for the navigational status attribute
accordingly.
d. If the name of the star has NOT been found in the text le, display a
message to indicate that the star was not found.
3.7 When the [Display] button is clicked:
a. Display the details of the star in the rich edit component redDescription
using the toString method.
b. Load the image of the constellation that the star belongs to into the
imgStar component. The le name of the image to be displayed is the
name of the constellation the star belongs to. All image les have the
extension “.jpg”.
3.8 The brightness and visibility of a star is dependent on the magnitude and the
distance of the star from Earth. When the [Visibility] button is clicked, call the
relevant methods to display the name and visibility of the star as a Message
Box.
For example, if Mimosa is selected and the [Visibility] button is clicked, you
should see the following message.
• Star: Mimosa
Visibility: Hardly visible to the naked eye
CHAPTER UNITS
Unit 3.1 2D arrays
Learning outcomes

describe the concept of 2D arrays
de ne the structure of 2D arrays
input data to 2D arrays using different sources
use the data from 2D arrays
output the data from 2D arrays using column and row headings.
2D ARRAYS
v=lCepY3luREc
INTRODUCTION
Imagine that you are writing a chess application. One of the main tasks
of your application would be to record the position of the pieces after
every move. To do this, your application would need to analyse each
square of the chessboard after a move and record whether it contains
a piece or not. How would you do this?
Figure 3.1: A chessboard contains eight rows and eight columns

You could create 64 individual variables with each variable storing the
name of the piece on it. However, with 64 variables, you would need to
access each variable individually since you cannot use a loop to iterate
through them. Furthermore, the computer would not understand the
relationship between these squares (that is, that one square is above
another one), making it very dif cult to use in the rules of your game.
A better solution would be to create eight array variables, with each

array containing the squares from one row. This would have the bene t
of your program understanding how all the squares in the rows are
related. However, you would still need to individually access the eight
arrays, and your computer will still not understand the relationship
between the different arrays.
In fact, the best way to handle this data is to create a single two-
dimensional (or 2D) array. A 2D array uses two indices: one for the row
and one for the column. This has a number of very signi cant
advantages:
You can store the data (elements) using a single variable.
You can scroll through the elements using a nested FOR-loop.
The relationship between the elements (that is, which squares are
next to which) is captured in the indices, making it possible to use
these relationships in your code.
In this chapter, you will learn more about 2D arrays and how they can
be used in programming.
UNIT
3.1 2D arrays
Since Grade 11, all your examples of arrays have been of one-
dimensional arrays. A one-dimensional array stores an i-number of
elements, of a speci c type. These elements can be accessed using
an index (usually “i”). For example, if you created an array to store the
rst ve powers of three, the values could be represented using a
single row with ve elements.
The third element in this array can be accessed using the array name
and the index of the element in square brackets.
Accessing an element in a 1D array

iValue := aNumbers[3];
In contrast, 2D arrays store two-dimensional data which is represented

using a grid with rows and columns. Each element in the 2D array has
two indices (usually I and J), with the rst index giving the row number
and the second index giving the column number.
If you look at the 2D grid below, you will see that it is made up of ve
rows and three columns. The value of the rst index indicates the
number of the row. This means that aNumbers[1, J] (where value of the
rst index is 1) refers to the elements in the rst row, while
aNumbers[2, J] refers to the second row of elements. In contrast, the
numbers in the second index indicates the column number. For
example, aNumbers[I, 3] refers to the elements in the third column of
the array.
The table below shows a visual representation of a 2D array.
The numbers in the array were created by raising the index I (the row
number) to the power of J (the column number).
The table effectively shows how 15 integer values can be represented

uniquely using the same identi er, aNumbers, and the two indices
surrounded by square brackets to distinguish between them. It shows
15 unique integer variables that can be accessed or be assigned new
values. Variables must be declared before they can be used. How is
the 2D array declared?
DECLARING A 2D ARRAY
To declare a 2D array, you can use the following syntax:
Where I gives the number of rows in the array and J gives the number
of columns. As can be seen from this declaration, 2D arrays have the
same general limitations as 1D arrays, namely:
all the elements of the array must have the same type
the array has a xed size.
Activity 3.1 Declaring 2D arrays
Using a pen and paper, declare the following arrays.

3.1.1 10 rows and 10 columns of integers.
3.1.2 5 rows and 4 columns of strings.
3.1.3 500 rows and 3 columns of reals.
3.1.4 250 rows and 400 columns of strings.
3.1.5 an array to model weeks and days in the month of May
Have you noticed that the 2D array models displays things in a similar
manner to a spreadsheet using only one data type? That data type can
be any of the built-in datatypes as well as those you declare.
ACCESSING ELEMENTS IN A 2D ARRAY

To access a speci c element in a 2D array, you need to give both the
row and column number.
Example 3.1 Accessing and using an element in a 2D array
Use the aNumber array above to reference the numbers given in the examples
below.
When working with 2D arrays, it is important to remember that the rst

index indicates the row number while the second index indicates the
column number.
ASSIGNING VALUES TO 2D ARRAYS

Once declared, you can assign values to, and read values from the
array by providing the column and row index.
Example 3.2 Assigning values to and array element

The activity below shows how this can be used in a real-life example.
Activity 3.2 Chess and 2D arrays
Look at the chessboard below. As you learned in the introduction of this chapter, the
position of pieces on a chessboard can be represented using a 2D array with 8 rows
and 8 columns.
Based on this position, complete the following tasks.
3.2.1 Declare an array of strings called aBoard, to represent the 8 × 8 squares on
the chess board.
3.2.2 Assign the position of all the pieces to the correct element in array aBoard.
Make sure to use different strings for white and black pieces or access
elements with the same pieces.
3.2.3 At the top right of the board, there are two yellow squares. These squares
show that the white king moved from the rst column to the second column in
the previous move. How would you code this move using your array?
The names of the pieces are given in the table below:
Since the data is saved in an array, you can use the information as part of
your program. For example, you can easily count which colour has the most
pieces by stepping through your array and counting the rst letters stored for
each square (“w” for white or “b” for black).
USING LOOPS TO STEP THROUGH AN ARRAY

While assigning values one-by-one can be useful (as in the chess
example), it is more common to use FOR-DO loops to assign values to
an array. The nested FOR-DO loop is the perfect control structure to
scroll through a 2D array. The indices must stay within the declared
boundaries or an out of bound error will occur.
Use the length function to ensure that the indices remain within the
boundaries.
var
aNumbers : Array [1..7,1..5,1..8] of Integer;
begin
showMessage(IntToStr(Length(aNumbers)));
//output 7
showMessage(IntToStr(Length(aNumbers[1])));
//output 5
showMessage(IntToStr(Length(aNumbers[1,1])));
//output 8
end;
Note how without any indices Length returns the rst upper boundary
when the lower boundary is 1. By xing the rst index, any number
from 1 to 7 will work, giving the upper boundary of the second index,
and so on. If a fourth index [,1..12] was given, how will the length
expression change to return its upper boundary, 12?
Example 3.3 Nested-FOR-DO loop
1. Use a nested FOR-DO loop to assign the sum of the row and column numbers
to each element of array aNumbers.
var
aNumbers : Array[1..3, 1..2] of Integer;
i, j: Integer;
begin
1: for i := 1 to length(aNumbers) do
2: for j := 1 to length(aNumbers[1]) do
3: aNumbers[i, j] := i + j;
end;
The code will produce the following 2D array:
Visual representation of the array

To see how values are assigned to the array in this FOR-DO loop, you can use
a trace table. By stepping through the code bit-by-bit, it becomes easier to see
how each element of the array is assigned a value.
For the code snippet above, add more rows to the trace table below and
complete tracing through the nested FOR-loop. Track the values of the
following variables:
1. i
2. j
3. Name of array element (including indices)
4. Value of the array element.
2. Use the same nested loop pattern to extract/access data from the 2D array.
In this example we have two options:
• build a line of output and then when complete add it to the Memo. Note
the line is set to null after adding to the Memo.
• build a single line which include line breaks then add.
for i := 1 to length(aNumbers) do
begin
for j := 1 to length(aNumbers[1]) do
line := line + format('%d ', [aNumbers[i,
j]]) ;
Memo1.lines.add(line);
line := '';
end;
//alternative
for i := 1 to length(aNumbers) do
begin
for j := 1 to length(aNumbers[1]) do
line := line + format('%d ', [aNumbers[i,
j]]) ;
line := line + sLineBreak;
end;
Memo1.lines.add(line);
Activity 3.3 Nested-FOR-DO loop
Now that you have seen how 2D arrays can be manipulated with nested FOR-DO
loops, create the following 2D arrays using pen and paper (include the variable
declarations):
3.3.1 An array containing the multiplication table for the rst six numbers.
3.3.2 An array containing the powers table for the rst ten numbers and three
exponents. You can use the Power function to do this.
3.3.3 A 10 by 10 2D array of numbers
• Fill the array with random numbers in the range 100 to 999.
• Extract the numbers from the 2D array and in a memo component display
as a 10 by 10 table.
• Insert an empty line and display the leading diagonal on the next line in
the memo.
USES OF 2D ARRAYS
Up to now, you have looked at very speci c uses of 2D arrays, but
these arrays are incredibly useful in a number of different situations.
Two of the most common general uses are when you need to store a
few pieces of information about every item in a list, and when you need
to store a grid of information. Here are some examples:
An application’s usernames and passwords can be read using a 2D
array.
The results of two tests and an exam for 500 students can be stored
in a 500 by 3 array.
A list of companies’ incomes, expenses and balances can be store
in a 2D array.
The multiplication table is a grid that can be stored in a 2D array.
The pixels of an image can be represented as a grid using a 2D
array.
The numbers on a sudoku puzzle can be stored in a 9 by 9 array.
The 4 suits of cards containing 13 cards each can be stored in a 13
by 4 array.
Various board games where the board has a grid like structure.
From the examples you will see that a 2D array is suitable for
modelling, or storing, most data in a table form. A 2D array can also be
used to store the data of a CSV le – as long as all of the elements
have a common type.
Figure 3.2: Tables and grids of information can be represented with 2D arrays
Activity 3.4
Open the application saved in 03 – Array Questions. You should see the following user
interface.
Create the following 2D arrays and display their values in the lstAnswer component.
Make use of the tab space character (#09) to display the values from the columns
separately.
3.4.1 The 6 by 6 multiplication table.
3.4.2 A 9 by 9 table containing a random value between 1 and 9 for each element.
3.4.3 A 10 by 5 table containing the sum of the indices.
3.4.4 A 7 by 5 table of randomly generated lowercase characters.
Did you know
The listbox component has a

TabWidth property which determines
how much space is used by the tab
space character. This property has a
default value of 0 which means tab
space characters are not shown,
unless you change the property.
For the rest of this chapter, you will be creating applications that work
with 2D arrays.
UNIT
3.2 2D arrays with data
In the previous unit, the data for the arrays were either entered
manually (as in the chess example) or generated automatically using
numbers. An additional method can be used to add data to arrays
which is to read the data from a text le or database. To see how this
can be done, you will use the following dataset (saved in the
marks.csv text le), which contains information about ve students at
your school.
However, before you can start working with the data you rst need to
add it to a 2D array.
Example 3.4 Adding data to an array
Open the project saved in your 03 – School Marks folder. You should see the
following user interface.
In the following example testing for the existence of the le left out to keep the
code simple. The code for the CSVIntoArray procedure is given below:
Procedure code
procedure CSVIntoArray;
var
sData : String;
iComma, i, j : Integer;
fCSV : TextFile;
// aData : Array[1..5, 1..7] of Integer;
(already declared globally)
begin
AssignFile(fCSV, 'marks.csv');
Reset(fCSV);
ReadLn(fCSV, sData);
for i := 1 to 5 do
begin
ReadLn(fCSV, sData);
for j := 1 to 7 do
begin
iComma := Pos(',', sData);
if iComma := > 0 then
begin
aData[i, j] := StrToInt(Copy(sData, 1, iComma
- 1));
Delete(sData, 1, iComma);
end
else
aData[i, j] := StrToInt(Copy(sData, 1,
Length(sData)));
end;
end
end;
Activity 3.5
Based on the code in the example 3.4 above, answer the following questions:
3.5.1 What is the purpose of this procedure?
3.5.2 Describe the purpose of the following lines:
a. for i := 1 to Length(aData) do
b. ReadLn(fCSV, sData);
c. for j := 1 to Length(aData[1]) do
d. iComma := AnsiPos(‘,’, sData);
e. aData[i, j] := StrToInt(Copy(sData, 1,
iComma - 1));
f. Delete(sData, 1, iComma);
3.5.3 When will the value of iComma be equal to 0?
3.5.4 Why is there a ReadLn function before the loop starts?
3.5.5 In the TStringlist version, describe the purpose of the following lines:
a. inList := TStringList.Create;
b. inList.DelimitedText := sData;
c. aData[i,j] := strtoint(inList.Strings[j-
1]);
3.5.6 Why does inList.Strings[j-1] have j-1 as the index?
3.5.7 Create an event for the [Read CSV] button that displays the data from the
array in the list box. Make sure to run the CSVIntoArray procedure at the start
of this event.
WORKING WITH ROWS OF DATA

In your 2D array above, each row contains information about a single
entity (in this case, a student). This is typical when you read data from
a CSV le or a database into an array. In contrast, each column
contains information about a speci c eld. For example, the rst
column contains all the student numbers, while the second column
contains the students’ ages.
When you want to work with the data of a row, you can keep the row
number (or rst index) constant while using a FOR-DO loop to update
the values of the second index.
Example 3.5 Find the largest mark in the rst row
Stepping through a row

iLargest := 0;
for j := 4 to Length(aData) do
begin
if aData[1, j] > iLargest then
iLargest := aData[1, j];
end;
In this snippet, a FOR-DO loop was created that repeats once for each
column of the array. The FOR-DO loop’s counter I is then used to
iterate through each element of the rst row of aData in order to nd
the largest value.
To see how this technique can be applied to your school’s dataset,

complete the following activity.
Activity 3.6 Stepping through a row
Using the 2D array created for School Marks, create events for the [1] and [2] buttons
to calculate and display the following:
3.6.1 The 3rd student’s average mark for his tests, assignment and exam.
3.6.2 The 2nd student’s highest mark.
WORKING WITH COLUMNS OF DATA

As the previous case study shows, stepping through the values of a
single row is useful when you want to make comparisons or do
calculations for a speci c item in your array. However, when you want
to do calculations or make comparisons using all the values of a single
eld, you need to step through a column.
To step through a column, you keep the second index constant while
using a FOR-DO loop to update the values of the rst index.
Example 3.6 Determine the age of the oldest student
Stepping through the rst column

iAge := 0;
for i := 1 to length(aData) do
begin
if aData[i, 2] > iAge then
iAge := aData[i, 2];
end;
Take note, the FOR-DO loop counter was changed to I. This is

because the letter I is used for the rst index of a 2D array. Inside the
FOR-DO loop, the second index (column number) of the array is now
held constant while the rst index (row number) changes as the loop
repeats.
To use this in an application, complete the following activity.
Activity 3.7 Stepping through a column
3.7.1 The total fees outstanding.
3.7.2 The average age of students.
Once complete, save the project in the 03 – School Marks folder.
STEPPING THROUGH ALL THE DATA

The nal way to step through the data is to use a nested FOR-DO loop
statement. With a nested FOR-DO loop statement, the outside loop
can be used to systematically select each of the rows or columns. The
inside FOR-DO loop can be used to step through the values of the
selected columns or rows. By combining two FOR-DO loops, you can
therefore step through all the data in a table.
Example 3.7 Determines the number of A’s scored by the class
Stepping through all the data

iCount := 0;
for i := 1 to Length(aData) do
for j := 4 to length(aData[1]) do
if aData[i, j] > 80 then
Inc(icount);
lstResults.Items.Add(IntToStr(iCount));
With this information in mind, complete the following activity.
Activity 3.8 Stepping through all the data
3.8.1 The highest single mark between the tests, assignment and exams.
3.8.2 The average of all the marks.
Once complete, save the project in the School Marks folder.
Activity 3.9
Using the 2D array created for School Marks, create events for the [7] to [15] buttons
3.9.1 The 5th student’s lowest mark.
3.9.2 If the 4th student obtained their personal highest mark for the assignment.
3.9.3 If the 2nd student’s average is above 90.
3.9.4 The age of the oldest student.
3.9.5 The student number of the student who obtained the highest mark for the
exam.
3.9.6 The student number with the highest outstanding fees.
3.9.7 The student with the highest average mark.
3.9.8 The lowest overall mark between all tests, exams and assignments.
3.9.9 The lowest mark of the student with the student number “200004”.
Once complete, save the project in the School Marks folder.
UNIT
3.3 Applications for two-dimensional
arrays
Now that you are more comfortable working with a two-dimensional

array, you can use that knowledge to create the game Sudoku. In
Sudoku, players start with a 9 × 9 grid with a few numbers inside each
3 × 3 square in the grid. The goal of the game is to ll each empty
space in the grid with a number between 1 and 9, in such a way that
there are no duplicate numbers within any:
Row
Column
Diagonal
3 × 3 square
ARRAYS IN DELPHI - PART 1

v=0MuOM3cT30M
The image below shows an example of an incomplete and completed

Sudoku game.
Figure 3.3: A starting and completed game of Sudoku
To create a game of Sudoku in Delphi, you will need to do the

following:
Create a 9 × 9 array to store the user’s values and a grid to display
the values.
Create a Duplicate Checker algorithm which checks if there are any
duplicates in a list of numbers.
Create a nested-loop that sends each of the nine rows to the
Duplicate Checker.
Create a nested-loop that sends each of the nine columns to the
Duplicate Checker.
Create a nested-loop that sends each of the nine 3 × 3 squares to
the Duplicate Checker.
Create a function to save or load starting positions.
ARRAYS IN DELPHI - PART 2
v=-KKRZqlmO9U
This chapter will complete the rst four of these tasks. However, if you
would like, you can complete the last two tasks on your own.
Example 3.8 Setting up Sudoku
To create the Sudoku game, you need to start by creating a grid to display the
results and an array to store the results. You also need to build the link between the
grid and the array, allowing values entered into the grid to be stored in the array. To
do this:
1. Open the project saved in the 03 × Sudoku folder. You should see the
following user interface.
Activity 3.10
Update your Sudoku game to inform the player when he or she wins the game. To win
the game, the following conditions need to be met:
3.10.1 There should be no 0 values in the array.
3.10.2 There should be no duplicates in any rows or columns.
Once done, save your application in the Sudoku folder.
CONSOLIDATION ACTIVITY Chapter 3: Two-dimensional arrays
QUESTION 1
1.1 Which of the following lines can be used to access an element from a 2D
array?
a. aNumbers[4;3]
b. aNumbers[4][3]
c. aNumbers[4,3]
d. aNumbers[4,3,7]
1.2 Write the code you would use to declare a 2D Boolean array with 6 rows and
15 columns called aWinLose.
1.3 A 2D array called aRainfall has been declared to contain the average rainfall
per month for ve towns.
a. What structure must be used to access the monthly rainfall for all towns.
b. Write the code used to show the monthly rainfall gures in table form.
1.4 A two-dimensional array called aStock has been used to record the quantities
of the four items for the four departments, as shown in the table below.
Write pseudocode to calculate the total stock per item and store these values
in the array.
1.5 Three parallel arrays called aPassengers, aStations and aMonths have been
declared to contain the number of passengers that pass through a train
station each month.
a. Why it is NOT possible to use a 2D array instead of three parallel arrays
to store this data as given?
b. What changes would you make to store the data into a 2D array?
QUESTION 2
For this application, open the project saved in the 03 – Question 2 folder. Once
done, save your project in the same folder.
The online-shopping website of MajorMax allows customers to buy items online

from various departments at their store. The manager of the company must
analyse their weekly sales gures.
The GUI below shows the interface of the program used by MajorMax to keep track
of their weekly sales gures.
The program contains code that declares two arrays, aDepartments and aSales.
The aDepartments array contains the names of the various departments that sell
products online
The aSales array is a two-dimensional array that contains the sales gures for
the rst six weeks of the year for each department. The rows in the array
represent the various departments and the columns represent various weeks.
2.1 When the [Sales Information] button is clicked, display the content of the
aSales array with suitable headings in the redOutput component provided. All
monetary values must be displayed in currency format with TWO decimal
places, as shown below.
2.2 A report of all underperforming departments per week is required. A
department is underperforming when their sales gure is lower than the
average sales for all the departments for that week. When the [Display
underperforming departments] button is pressed, display a report with the
sales gures of all underperforming departments. All monetary values must
be displayed in currency format with TWO decimal places.
The output below shows an example of an underperforming report for the rst
three weeks:
2.3 Currently the data in the aSales array represents the sales gures for the rst
six weeks of the year. Before the sales gures for the next week (Week 7) can
be added to the array and analysed, the current data for Week 1 must be
backed up to a text le. To do this:
a. Use Delphi code to create a new text le. The name of the text le is the
number of the week of the sales gures that are archived. For example, if
the sales gures for Week 1 are archived in the le, then the name of the
text le will be Week 1.txt.
b. Save the data (with headings) to the new text le, a shown below.
c. When the data for Week 1 has been archived, the data for Week 2 in the
arrSales array must be moved to the position of Week 1 in the array; the
data for Week 3 must be moved to Week 2, and so on.
d. For test purposes, the sales data for the new week must be randomly
generated values between R500 and R5 000.
e. Use code to update the labels used to display the number of the week.
The new report should look as follows.
QUESTION 3
For this application, open the project saved in the 03 – Question 3 folder. Once
done, save your project in the same folder.
A new game called Galaxy Explore is planned and needs to be developed. The
purpose of the game is to prepare a grid with a number of randomly placed planets
that are not visible to the player. The player must then guess the position of the
planets on the grid. The grid will be referred to as the Game board.
The GUI below shows an early version of the user interface for the program.
The program must do the following:

Populate the 2D array when the game starts.
Allow the user to guess the positions of invisible planets placed randomly on the
game board.
Determine whether the player has won or lost and terminate the game. The
player wins when he/she identi es two planets on the game board within ve
guesses.
3.1 When the [Start game] button is pressed:
a. The [Play] button must be enabled and the rich edit components must be
cleared.
b. A dash character (-) represents an open space in the aGame and a hash
character (#) represents a planet. The 2D array must rst be populated
with open-space characters.
c. The content of the aGame array must be displayed in the game board
area.
d. The aGame array must be updated to include the appropriate number of
planets. The level of dif culty selected from the radio group rgbQ2
determines the number of planets. The following rules apply:
• Dif culty level 1: 50 positions in the array must be replaced by
planets (#).
planets (#).
planets (#).
e. The value ‘0’ must be displayed on the panel pnlQ2NumberOfGuesses,
which indicates the total number of guesses. The image below shows the
user interface after the [Start game] button is pressed.
3.2 When the [Play] button is clicked:
a. The player guesses the position of a planet by selecting a row number
and a column number from the combo boxes provided.
b. If the position of a planet is guessed correctly:
• Update the display to show the position of the planet (#) that was
guessed correctly.
• Update the number of correct guesses on the panel
pnlQ2NumberOfGuesses.
c. In the aGame array, replace the planet character (#) that was guessed
correctly with the “Y” character to show which planets were identi ed
during the game play session. This information is required for the [Reveal
Planets] button.
d. If the position guessed is NOT the position of a planet, display the row
and column values of the incorrect guess in the redQ2Incorrect output
area.
e. Allow the player to guess the positions of planets repeatedly until he or
she wins or loses the game.
• A game is won as soon as the positions of two planets are correctly
guessed.
• A game is lost if fewer than two planets are guessed within the
allowed ve guesses.
f. Use a message box to display a suitable message based on the outcome
of the game, either ‘Game won’ or ‘Game lost’.
g. Disable the [Play] button when the game is over. The image below shows
the output if the positions of two planets were guessed correctly within
two guesses:
The image below shows the output if the player lost the game. The position of only
one planet was guessed correctly within ve guesses:
3.3 When the [Reveal planets] button is clicked, write code to display the game
board with all the randomly placed planets revealed.
CHAPTER UNITS
Learning outcomes

select columns and calculated elds
select columns and rows using conditions
use functions and aggregate functions when selecting data
update, add and delete data using SQL statements
query one or two tables using SQL statements
use the data from an SQL statement in a Delphi application.
WHAT IS SQL
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INTRODUCTION
SQL stands for Structured Query Language, which is a standardised
language that can be used to work with almost all relational
databases. This includes database management software (DBMS) like
Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, SQLite, MySQL and Microsoft Access.
New words
relational database – a database

structured to recognise relations
between stored items of information
SQL can also be used inside most programming languages, including

Delphi, to communicate with databases. This allows you to complete
almost any task on a database, including:
adding, changing and deleting records in a table
selecting data/records from tables
displaying sorted records selected from a Database
performing calculations on elds and records in tables
grouping data/records from tables
joining tables.
In this chapter, you will learn how to use SQL to do these tasks, both
inside and outside of Delphi. For each unit inside this chapter, you will
look at what the different SQL commands do, what their syntax is, and
how they can be used in Delphi. To do this, your teacher will provide
you with a database containing information on the 100 most
successful movies in history, together with an executable le
(MoviesSQL.exe). You will also be given a second database
containing healthcare data on carnivores, together with the executable
le (CarnivoresSQL.exe).
Illustrated below are some screenshots of the databases that you will
use to test your SQL statements.
Figure 4.1: A snippet of the database you will be using (created using
MoviesSQL.exe)
Figure 4.2: Opening screen of the database you will be using (created using
MoviesSQL.exe)
Figure 4.3: No SQL statement entered for the database you will be using (created
using MoviesSQL.exe)
Figure 4.4: Missing semicolon in the database you will be using (created using
CarnivoresSQL.exe)
Figure 4.5: Syntax Error in the database you will be using (created using
CarnivoresSQL.exe)
Figure 4.6: Missing or misspelled table in the database you will be using (created
using CarnivoresSQL.exe)
Figure 4.7: Successly loading data in the database you will be using (created
using CarnivoresSQL.exe)
UNIT
4.1 Select and sort columns
The single most important SQL command you will learn is the SELECT
command. This command selects the data from a database, allowing
you to either use it in an application or show it to the user. For
example, your school might use a database containing all the learners’
information and marks. When they create your report card, they use
the SELECT command to select speci c information (certain elds)
about you (such as your name, surname and marks) and place that in
a report.
SORTING DATABASES IN DELPHI
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Other examples of SELECT being used include:

social networks selecting messages and status updates relevant to
you
games selecting the correct enemies and graphics to show
music applications selecting the correct song from the database.
In this unit, you will learn how to:

select different elds
select distinct values
order selected data
Did you know
It is convention, but not required, to

write SQL commands like SELECT
and INSERT in uppercase letters. This
makes it easier to read SQL
statements. The basic structure of a
SQL query isalways the same with
the same order in keywords even if
some of the clauses are omitted.
SELECT FIELDS
The SELECT statement can consist of different clauses depending on
the information you want to display. A SELECT query doesn’t change
the values in the database, it only displays what is in the database.
SELECT syntax
SELECT field_name1, field_name2, …,
field_name100 FROM table_name;
The elds are separated with a comma (,) and only the listed elds will
be displayed.
Looking at the tblMovies table from your example database, you could
select and show the title and income of the tblMovies table. To do this,
you would use the following query:
Selecting movies and income

SELECT title, income FROM tblMovies;
Title and income are eld names and tblMovies is the name of the
table.
Did you know
The asterisk (*) symbol can be used

as a wildcard in place of eld names
to select all the elds.
Example 4.1 Running SQL Queries in the testSQL app
1. Open the folder 04 – Movies; make sure the database Movies.mdb is present;
and run the MoviesSQL.exe le by double-clicking it.
2. Enter the following SQL query in the SQL edit box at the top of the interface.
SELECT query
SELECT title, income FROM tblMovies;
3. Click on the [Execute] button under the SQL edit box. You should now see the
data from your query displayed in the Query window below.
Figure 4.8: The Query1 table only shows the “title” and “income” fields
Congratulations, you have just created your rst SQL query!
Example 4.2 More examples to try
Use the procedure above to run these SQL statements.

Note that once the program is running, you may change the SQL and execute the
new statement without restarting the program. Use the Snipping tool to record your
results.
Activity 4.1
4.1.1 For each of the example queries, how many records were selected?
4.1.2 How do the answers compare to the total number of records in the original
tables?
4.1.3 In your own words describe what the “SELECT elds FROM table” statement
do?
4.1.4 What will be the difference in output if number 1 in the table above is changed
to SELECT release_date, title FROM tblMovies.
4.1.5 A group of learners were asked to display the title, genre and income of all the
movies in the database, comment on the answers given below. If you think it’s
wrong then state why?
a. SELECT FROM tblMovies title, genre, income;
b. SELECT movies, genre, income FROM tblMovies;
c. SELECT title, genre, income, FROM tblMovies;
d. SELECT genre, income, title FROM tblMovies;
4.1.6 Using a pen and paper, write SQL queries to select the following data.
a. The generalName and numadults from the tblCarnivores
b. The scienti cName and the generalName from the tblCarnivores
c. The visitDate and reasonForVisit from the tblVetVists
d. The generalName, numadults, numYoung and enclosureSize from the
tblCarnivores
e. The reasonForVisit and followUp from the tblVetVists
Once you have written down the queries, test the queries by opening
the folder testSQL_app; make sure the database Carnivores.mdb is
present; and run the CarnivoresSQL.exe le as you did in the
previous examples.
DISTINCT
There are many situations where you may want to only select the
unique (or distinct) values in a eld, that is, no duplicates in the same
column ( eld). Placing the DISTINCT keyword directly after the SELECT
keyword informs the DBMS that you want to select all distinct values
from a speci c column. The syntax for DISTINCT is shown below:
DISTINCT syntax
SELECT DISTINCT field_name FROM table_name;
Example 4.3
If you would like to know what the possible genres of movies in the database is,
you only want to see the distinct genres.
SELECT DISTINCT genre FROM tblMovies;

Figure 4.9: A list of distinct genres from the database
In this image, the rst row is empty. This is because there are empty (or null)
values in the genre column. Note no duplicate values appear in the column.

Activity 4.2
4.2.1 Study table tblCarnivores and table tblVetVisits in the Carnivores database;
correct the mistakes in the following SQL statements.
a. SELECT DISTINCT ReasonForVisit FROM Carnivores;
b. SELECT FROM tblVetVisits DISTINCT EnclosureNo;
Did you know
This is very useful if you need the

values to ll a combo box with distinct
values for user selection.
Using a pen and paper, create queries to select the following data.
4.2.2 The unique FamilyNames for the animals in the tblCarnivores.
4.2.3 A list of the different reasons for the vet’s visits.
4.2.4 A list of distinct enclosures.
Run CarnivoresSQL.exe to test your queries.
4.2.5 Based on the query results, how many unique animal family names are there?
Queries like these are often used to create a list of unique items that
meet some criteria. For example, you might create a query to identify
movie studios that makes low-quality movies or to identify cities closely
linked to the lm industry. In Unit 4.2, you will learn how to add criteria
to your selection.
ORDER BY
In the previous sections, you used the SELECT statement to select
data. Now, you will learn how to sort the data that has been selected
using the ORDER BY clause. To do this, you use the following syntax:
ORDER BY syntax
SELECT field_name1, field_name2,... FROM
table_name
ORDER BY field_name1 order_type;
As you can see from the syntax, the ORDER BY clause introduces a
new instruction to your SQL query. The instruction tells the DBMS to
organise the results of the query based on the values of a speci c eld.
The speci c eld must be one or more of the elds in the select-clause.
If more, then the elds must be separated by commas. Each eld must
have its own order type indicated e.g. ORDER BY eld1 ASC, eld2
DESC;
Example 4.5
If you want to organise your list of movies from the highest income to the lowest
income, you could use the following query.
Order from the Highest to the lowest income

SELECT * FROM tblMovies
ORDER BY income DESC;
Figure 4.10: Movies from highest to lowest income
As the image shows, at the end of 2018, Avatar was the highest
grossing lm, earning more than R39 billion.
Did you notice the word “DESC” at the end of the query? This keyword
tells your database to show the results in descending order (from
largest to smallest).
There are two order types you can use:

ASC: Short for ascending, this organises your data from the smallest
value to the largest value. ASC can be omitted and the data will
automatically be order in ascending order.
DESC: Short for descending, this organises your data from the
largest value to the smallest value.
Activity 4.3 Queries using ORDER BY
Using the database Carnivores.mdb create and test the following ordered queries
using the testSQL_app for Carnivores:
4.3.1 All of the general names of carnivores arranged alphabetically.
4.3.2 All of the vet’s visits listed by date starting with the last visit.
4.3.3 All of the scienti cNames of the Carnivores listed alphabetically.
4.3.4 The screenshot shows the elds FamilyNames and Scienti cName selected
from table tblCarnivores and arranged in a certain order.
Provide the SQL statement that could have produced this output.
Activity 4.4 Select and sort columns
Create the following ordered queries and test in MoviesSQL.exe:

4.4.1 Select the income, score and title from the tblMovies table.
4.4.2 Select the name, city and province elds from the tblStudios table.
4.4.3 Select the title and score elds and order the table based on the score (from
highest to lowest) from the tblMovies table.
4.4.4 Select the title, income and release_date elds and order the table based on
the release date (from oldest to newest) from the tblMovies table.
4.4.5 Select all cities from the tblStudios table. Every city must appear only once.
4.4.6 Select all movies organised by genre (ascending) and title (ascending).
4.4.7 Select all movies organised according to score (highest to lowest) and release
date (oldest to the newest).
4.4.8 Select all movies organised by genre (ascending) and income (highest to
lowest).
4.4.9 Select all movies organised by studio_id (from lowest to highest) and score
(from highest to the lowest).
UNIT
4.2 Select columns and rows
In Unit 4.1 we selected columns and displayed all the data available in
the selected columns. Now imagine your bank details occupy one row
in a database table and your consultant only needs your record. Why
fetch the whole table? There must be a way to select just the row that
the consultant requires. This is exactly what the function of the WHERE
clause is: to select the rows according to some speci c conditions. In
the case of your bank account, the consultant can select just the row
with your details.
The WHERE syntax is given below:
WHERE syntax
SELECT field_names
FROM table_name
WHERE condition1 <Logic Operator > condition 2;
Take note
Every record that meets the
conditions in the WHERE clause will
be selected.
You use the same syntax as the normal SELECT syntax, but simply
add the WHERE clause at the end of it (before the semicolon).
SQL does not register the line breaks in an SQL statement. As such,
SELECT, FROM and WHERE can be placed on separate lines to make
the statement easier to read. This is especially important with complex
queries.
RELATIONAL OPERATORS
The Boolean expressions used with the WHERE command, are similar
to those used in Delphi. The following table lists the relational operators
that can be used in SQL and shows how it is applied in the WHERE
clause.
Table 4.1: Relational operators that can be used in SQL
Note, in SQL, strings must be surrounded by single quotation marks

normally used in Delphi.
To see how the operators are used, work through the following
examples.
Example 4.7 Creating a query with WHERE and one CONDITION
To create a query with WHERE:

1. Using the database Movies.mdb create and test the following queries with the
testSQL_app MoviesSQL.exe:
WHERE query
SELECT title FROM tblMovies WHERE genre =
'Superhero';
This code will show all the movies in the database where the genre is
‘Superhero’. Remember, in SQL, strings must be surrounded by quotation
marks.
By clicking on the [Execute] button, you should see the following result:

Activity 4.5 Select and sort columns
Using the App. in the folder 04 – Movies with the database Movies.mdb; create and
test queries that will select the following data:
4.5.1 All elds of fantasy movies.
4.5.2 The title and date of all movies with an income lower than R12 billion.
4.5.3 The genre of all movies with a score higher than or equal to 80.
4.5.4 The name, the city and province of all studios in the United States.
4.5.5 All movies where the studio_id is 2 organised by genre (ascending) and
income (descending).
Using the App in the folder 04 – Carnivores with the database Carnivores.mdb; create
and test queries that will select the following data:
4.5.6 All species of Carnivores that have an endangered rating of “VU”.
4.5.7 All animals kept in enclosure ZC2.
4.5.8 All animals where the number of adults is greater than 5.
WILDCARDS AND THE LIKE OPERATOR

Wildcards are special characters that can be used in SQL to represent
any character or number of characters (letters or numbers) in a string.
These wildcards are used in a WHERE clause in combination with the
LIKE operator to nd values that match a speci c pattern in a eld.
LIKE syntax
SELECT field_names FROM table_name
WHERE field_name LIKE 'wildcard_pattern';
Did you know

Visit
https://www.w3schools.com/sql/sql_
wildcards.asp for a list of wildcards.
There are two wildcard characters that can be used in wildcard

patterns:
By using these characters to query your database, you can search for
movies starting with the word ‘The’ by placing a percentage symbol (in
Delphi) or an asterisk symbol (in Access) after it.
Example 4.9 Creating a query with WHERE and a CONDITION using LIKE with
wildcards
Run the MoviesSQL app, enter and test the following queries:
Movies starting with “The”

WHERE title LIKE 'The%';
The results can be seen in the gure below.
Figure 4.11: All movies whose names start with “The”

Activity 4.6
Using the App. in the folder 04 – Movies with the database Movies.mdb; create and
test queries that will select the following data:
4.6.1 All movies ending with the word ‘out’.
4.6.2 All movies where the score starts with an 8 (using an underscore).
4.6.3 Spider-Man 2 and Spider-Man 3 (but no other Spider-Man movies).
4.6.4 All movies where the name starts with ‘Harry’ and ends with an ‘e’.
4.6.5 All movies ending with the word ‘man’.
Using the App. in the folder 04 – Carnivores with the database Carnivores.mdb;
create and test queries that will select the following data:
4.6.6 All Carnivores where the name ends in ‘mongoose’.
4.6.7 All vet visits where the animal had an injury or were injured.
4.6.8 All Vet visits where the vet treated ears.
In Delphi the ‘_’character is useful if you want to select data with a

speci c length, but not speci c characters. For example, if you
wanted to select mobile phone numbers starting with 072, you could
use the wildcard string ‘072_______’ (i.e. 7 underscore characters).
This would nd all 10-digit telephone numbers starting with 072.
BOOLEAN OPERATORS
As with the Delphi conditional statements, you can use Boolean
operators to combine conditions in the WHERE clause. The table
below shows three of the most common Boolean operators that can
be used in SQL.
Table 4.2: Most common Boolean operators that can be used in SQL
OPERATOR PRECEDENCE
The Boolean operators are executed in the following order:
Parenthesis
Multiplication, division
Subtraction, addition
NOT
AND
OR
To change the order of operations, you will need to use of brackets –

much the same way as you do in Mathematics.
Example 4.11 Creating a query with WHERE and compound CONDITIONS
Using the apps in the folder with the databases 04 – Movies Movies.mdb and 04 –
Carnivores folder with the database Carnivores.mdb; create and test queries that
will select the following data.

WHERE (genre = 'Superhero') AND (score > 80);
The query selects all elds of superhero movies where the score is larger than or
equal to 80. This will show the following results.
Figure 4.12: All superhero movies with a score above 80
Activity 4.7
4.7.1 The clause WHERE genre LIKE ‘%drama%’ and the clause WHERE (genre =
‘Drama’) OR (genre = ‘Historical drama’) selected the same records.
Will this always be the case? Motivate your answer.
4.7.2 Which one of the following WHERE clauses will select action and superhero
movies with and income less than R20 000 000 000:
a. WHERE genre = ‘action’ OR genre = ‘superhero’ AND income <
20000000000;
b. WHERE genre = ‘action’ AND genre = ‘superhero’ AND income <=
20000000000;
c. WHERE genre = ‘action’ OR genre = ‘superhero’ AND income <
20000000000;
d. WHERE (genre = ‘action’ OR genre = ‘superhero’) AND income <
20000000000;
4.7.3 Complete the following SQL statement:
SELECT * _____ tblMovies ______ genre = ‘Animated’ ______ score >
85;
Carnivores folder with the database Carnivores.mdb; create and test queries that will
select the following data.
4.7.4 All movies with a genre of fantasy or a studio_id equal to 4.
4.7.5 All movies that are not superhero or action movies.
4.7.6 All action movies with a score less than 50 and those greater than 60.
4.7.7 All Carnivores where the adults are over 5 years old and they do not belong to
the Viverridae family.
SPECIAL OPERATORS
SQL also includes a few special operators that help you to simplify
complex conditions. These operators, their functions and their syntax
are shown in the table below.
Table 4.3: Special SQL operators
Example 4.13
BETWEEN example
WHERE score BETWEEN 55 AND 65;
This query will result in the following list of movies.

Figure 4.13: Movies with a score between 55 and 65
Take note that each of these movies have a score between 55 and 65, and a few
movies (like one of the Harry Potter movies) has a score of exactly 65.
The next example shows how the IN command works.
Example 4.14
IN example
WHERE genre IN ('Drama', 'Historical Drama',
'Musical');
This query will create a list of movies where the genre is either “Drama”, “Historical
Drama” or “Musical”.
Figure 4.14: All drama, historical drama and musicals
While the same results could be achieved by writing a very long SQL
query containing OR operators, the IN operator is a lot easier to write
and read.
The next example shows how the IS NULL command works.
Example 4.15
IS NULL operator
WHERE genre IS NULL;
This nal example query will select all records that do not have a value for the
genre eld. This can be especially useful if there are important differences between
data with values and without values or when you are trying to nd and x any gaps
in your data.
Figure 4.15: Movies without a genre
Activity 4.8
Use special operators in each.
4.8.1 Title and studio_id of all movies with a studio_id of 1, 4, 5 or 9.
4.8.2 Title and genre of all movies with an income between R12 billion and R18
billion.
4.8.3 Title, date and score of all movies without a release date.
4.8.4 Title and genre of all movies that are not action, adventure, fantasy or
superhero.
4.8.5 Title of all superhero movies with a score between 60 and 80.
4.8.6 The generalName and EnclosureSize of all enclosures greater than 30 m2 and
less than 40 m2
Up to now, dates from the SQL database have only been selected,
without being manipulated or used in any conditions. This is because,
dates, like strings, have their own rules and functions which need to be
used.
DATES IN CONDITIONS
To use a date in a condition, you need to surround the date with the
hash (#) symbol. The date does not have to follow a speci c format
since SQL does a good job of interpreting different dates. This means
that, if you want to enter the date 5 January 2018, you could use a
number of different formats, including:
#5 January 2018#
#5 Jan 18#
#2018/01/05#
The one date format you should not use is the South African standard
format of day/month/year (that is, #05/01/2018#) since SQL may
interpret this as month/day/year, giving you incorrect results. Instead, it
is safer to use the international date format which goes from the largest
unit of time to the smallest (that is, year/month/day).
DATE FUNCTIONS
The following four date functions can also be used when working with
dates in your database.
Table 4.4: Date functions
Example 4.16
1. Which movies from your database were released on or after 1 January 2018?
Date condition
WHERE release_date >= #2018/01/01#;
Figure 4.16: Movies released since the start of 2018
2. Which movies from the database were released in 2012?
condition using a Date function

SELECT * FROM tblMovies WHERE
YEAR(release_date) = 2012;
When using dates in conditional statements, all the Boolean operators,
including AND, OR and BETWEEN, can be used.
Activity 4.9
Using the apps in the folder with the databases 04 – Movies Movies.mdb; create and
test queries that will select the following data.
4.9.1 Show all of the movies released before the start 1994.
4.9.2 Show all of the movies released after 10 June 2016.
4.9.3 Show all of the movies released between the start of 2000 and the end of
2005.
4.9.4 Show all of the movies released on the rst day of the month.
4.9.5 Show all of the movies released in the last three months of the year.
4.9.6 Show all of the movies released in 2009.
Activity 4.10 Select columns and rows
Write down the following queries using pen and paper. Make sure that all calculated
elds have eld names.
4.10.1 Select the title and score of all fantasy movies.
4.10.2 Select all movies made by the second studio.
4.10.3 Select all movies with an income smaller than R13 billion and a score below
50.
4.10.4 Select all movies with a score above 90 that are not animated.
4.10.5 Select all, superhero, fantasy and science ction movies using the IN operator.
4.10.6 Select all movies that do not have a release date.
4.10.7 Select all movies that contain the word ‘me’.
4.10.8 Select all movies released before 1999.
UNIT
4.3 Calculated columns
When working with datasets, you may wish to perform some

calculations on a eld before returning the selected data. For example,
your Movies database is showing the income of the movies in Rands,
even though most of the income was earned in dollars. In situations
outside of South Africa, you may wish to rst convert the income to
dollars before displaying the results. To do this, you need to make use
of a calculated eld.
CALCULATED FIELDS
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A calculated eld is displayed in the same was as any other eld on

your table. The only difference between a normal eld and a calculated
eld is that, as the name suggests, the calculated eld is calculated
each time you run your query. This means that the data from the
calculated eld is never stored on the database itself, but instead is
recalculated each time.
New words
calculated field – the eld that is

calculated each time you run your
query
To create a calculated eld, you enter the calculation into your SQL
query as a selected eld.
Calculated eld syntax

SELECT field_names, calculation
FROM table_name;
The problem with these queries is that the calculated elds do not have
a heading. This makes it dif cult to interpret the results. To assign a
name to the heading, you need to use the AS clause, as shown in the
syntax below.
Calculated eld syntax with AS

SELECT field_names, calculation AS
calculated_field_name
FROM table_name;
Calculated eld names cannot be used in the other clauses such as

ORDER BY.
SQL calculations use the same mathematical operators (and order of

operations – BODMAS) as calculations inside Delphi.
Example 4.17
In the query below, the income is divided by 14 to convert the Rands into Dollars.
This is therefore a calculated eld. Using the AS command, the calculated eld is
given the name “dollar_income”.
Calculated eld example

SELECT title, income/14 AS dollar_income
FROM tblMovies;
Looking at the image alongside, you will see that there is a new calculated eld
called dollar_income which shows the original income of the movies divided by 14.
Figure 4.17: Selection with a calculated field
Activity 4.11 Select columns and rows
4.11.1 All movies showing the movie title and a calculated eld called lower_score
that subtracts 10 from the score.
4.11.2 All movies showing the movie title and a calculated eld called
income_in_billions that divides the income by 1 000 000 000.
4.11.3 All carnivores listing the general name and a calculated eld
Total_Number_Animals where the family name is ‘Canidae’.
FUNCTIONS IN CALCULATIONS
Previously we used the DATE functions as part of the conditions to
select records. Functions can also be used in calculated elds as part
of the calculation or to format the result of a calculation.
NUMBER FUNCTIONS
As you start using calculated elds more often, you will notice that
these elds are often not formatted correctly.
Example 4.18
All carnivores listing the general name and a calculated eld AreaPerAnimal where
area_per_animal is less than 6 m2 per animal to determine overcrowded
enclosures. The calculated eld name cannot be used in the WHERE clause, only
the actual calculation.
SELECT GeneralName, enclosureSize /(numAdults

+ numYoung)AS AreaPerAnimal
FROM tblCarnivores
WHERE enclosureSize /(numAdults + numYoung)
<6;
To x this, you can use the four functions shown in the table below as part of your
SQL commands:
Replace the SELECT clause above with the ones below.
SELECT GeneralName, STR(enclosureSize

/(numAdults + numYoung)) AS
AreaPerAnimal FROM tblCarnivores;
SELECT GeneralName, ROUND(enclosureSize
/(numAdults + numYoung),2) AS
SELECT GeneralName, INT(enclosureSize
/(numAdults + numYoung)) AS
SELECT GeneralName, FORMAT(enclosureSize

/(numAdults + numYoung),'00.00')
AS AreaPerAnimal FROM tblCarnivores;
Take note that the format string from the FORMAT function takes
similar string values to Delphi’s. A few FORMAT examples with their
outputs are shown below:
FORMAT(release_date, ‘dd mmmm yyyy’) — 15 October 2018
FORMAT(release_date, ‘dd-mm-yy’) — 15-10-18
FORMAT(release_date, ‘dd mmm yyyy hh:nn:ss’) — 15 Oct 2018
12:15:52
FORMAT(income, ‘0.00’) — 15130000000.00
FORMAT(income, ‘0.##’) — 15130000000
FORMAT(income, “Currency”) — R15,130,000,000.00
FORMAT(NumYoung/(NumYoung + NumAdults), ‘0%’) — 84%
Activity 4.12
4.12.1 How does the use of INT change the format of the output AreaPerAnimal
compared to the original output?
4.12.2 Explain the difference in output when ‘00.00’ and ‘##.##’ was used to display
AreaPerAnimal.
4.12.3 What will the AreaPerAnimal output look like if the format string is ‘#.00’?
Create the following queries with calculated elds using a pen and paper, making sure
to give each calculated eld a meaningful name.
4.12.4 Show all movies’ titles and incomes (converted to an integer).
4.12.5 Show all movies’ titles and incomes (rounded to 1 decimal point).
4.12.6 Show the movies’ titles and scores (divided by 100 and formatted as a
percentage).
4.12.7 Show only the release dates of movies (formatted as 15/12/2018).
4.12.8 Show the movies’ titles, income (formatted as a currency) and score (divided
by 100 and formatted as a percentage).
DATE FUNCTIONS
When creating calculated columns, the names of functions (such as
YEAR, MONTH, and DAY) cannot be used as eld names. See list of
DATE functions in Unit 4.2 on page 127.
Example 4.19
Select all movie titles and the year of their release and display the latest movies
rst.
SELECT title, YEAR(Release_date) AS

YearReleased FROM tblMovies ORDER BY
YEAR(Release_date) DESC;
Activity 4.13
Use MoviesSQL app with the databases “Movies.mdb”; create and test queries that
will select the following data.
4.13.1 Show all movie titles, release_dates and the year of their release.
4.13.2 Show all the movie titles released on the rst day of the month.
4.13.3 Show all the movie titles released in the last three months of the year.
4.13.4 Show all the movie titles released in 2009.
4.13.5 Show all the movie titles release dates and their age (in days).
4.13.6 Show all the movie titles release dates and their age (in months)
STRING FUNCTIONS
Just like Delphi, SQL allows you to manipulate strings in different ways.
The table below shows four different string functions you can use in
your SQL queries.
Table 4.5: Four different string functions used in a SQL query
Example 4.20
Show the rst ve characters of all studios’ names.
SELECT DISTINCT LEFT (name, 5) AS FirstFive

FROM tblStudios;
Activity 4.14
Create the following queries using string functions. Make sure to give each calculated
eld a relevant name.
4.14.1 Show the second, third and fourth character of all studios’ cities.
4.14.2 Show all movies’ titles, as well as the length of the titles.
4.14.3 Show the rst and last letter of all the studios’ names.
4.14.4 Show the rst 2 letters of the enclosure name from the table carnivores as the
Enclosure types.
COMBINING STRINGS
The nal type of calculated eld is created by combining two strings.
To do this, you simply add the one string to the second string using the
plus (+) operator. This can be combined with functions such as STR
and FORMAT to combine numbers or dates with strings.
Example 4.21
Appending the ‘%’ symbol to the score.
Integer score to percentage

SELECT title, STR(score) + '%' AS
score_percentage FROM tblMovies;
Activity 4.15
Create the following queries using tblMovies from the Movies.mdb database and the
tblVetVisits from the Carnivores.mdb database with a combined string using pen and
paper, making sure to give each calculated eld a relevant name.
4.15.1 Show all movie titles’ and incomes, where the income is converted to billions
(i.e. divide by 1 000 000 000) and the string ‘bn’ is added to the end of it.
4.15.2 Show the movie studios’ names and locations (as ‘City, Province, Country’).
4.15.3 Show all animals where the followUp eld has the value false. List the animal
name, reason for visit and the Animal_ID, and the string, ‘No follow up
required’.
Always remember to consider spaces when combining strings. In the

third question, a space is added after each comma.
Activity 4.16 Calculated elds
Write down the following queries using tblMovies from the Movies.mdb database and
tblVetVisits from the Carnivores.mdb database using pen and paper. Make sure that
all calculated elds have appropriate eld names.
4.16.1 Show all the movie titles’ release dates and their age (in years).
4.16.2 Show month and day of vet’s visits.
4.16.3 Select all movies released on the 12th day of the month.
4.16.4 Select the movie titles and the income divided by 1.15 to remove VAT. Use an
appropriate heading and format.
4.16.5 Select all titles and show the year, month and day of release separately from
the tblMovies table.
4.16.6 Display the rst two and last two letters of each movie’s title.
UNIT
4.4 Aggregate functions
Up to now, all the calculated elds have manipulated the values of an

individual record. This is useful if you want to work with the data from
records but is not very useful if you want to work with the overall data
from the dataset. When you want to answer question about the overall
dataset, you need to use the aggregate SQL functions.
AGGREGATE FUNCTION
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In this section, you will learn about ve aggregate functions.
Table 4.6: Five aggregate functions

Each of these functions will complete a calculation on your dataset and
return a single value as the result. Since these functions return a single
value (rather than a value for each record), they cannot be used in a
query with other elds (such as title or genre).
Example 4.22
SELECT title, SUM(income)

AS total_income
FROM tblMovies;
Doing this will result in an error.
Figure 4.18: Aggregate function with a normal field

Here is the syntax for the aggregate function:
syntax for aggregate functions

SELECT Aggregate_function(field_name) AS
calculated_name
FROM table_name WHERE condition;
There are hundreds of different uses for the aggregate function. It

allows you to answer questions about your entire dataset. Let’s look at
some examples:
Example 4.23
To nd the sum of the income from all movies, you could do the following query:
SUM
SELECT SUM(income) AS total_income FROM
tblMovies;
Example 4.24
To nd the average of the income from all movies, you could write the following
query:
AVG
SELECT AVG(income) AS avg_income FROM
tblMovies;
Example 4.25
To nd the lowest score given to an action movie, you could use the following
query.
MAX or MIN example

SELECT MIN(score) as lowest_score
FROM tblMovies
WHERE genre = 'Action';
Figure 4.19: Finding the lowest score given to an action movie
Example 4.26
To count the number of superhero movies, you could write the following query:
COUNT with WHERE

SELECT COUNT(genre) AS num_of_superhero
FROM tblMovies
WHERE genre = 'Superhero';
Figure 4.20: Number of superhero movies
Activity 4.17
Using a pen and paper, write down SQL queries to answer the following questions.
4.17.1 How many movies have a score below 50?
4.17.2 What is the maximum income earned by any movie?
4.17.3 What is the minimum score earned by an animated movie?
4.17.4 What is the total income earned by all movies containing the words ‘Harry
Potter’ in their title?
4.17.5 What was the average score received by all movies from studio_id2?
Once complete, use these queries in the MoviesSQL App.
GROUP BY
The problem with aggregate functions is that they only return a single
value. If you want to compare the scores obtained by different genres
of movies, you would need to write a separate query or create a
separate calculated eld for each genre. This is not very practical,
especially not with large databases. To x this problem, you can use
the GROUP BY clause.
As the name suggests, the GROUP BY clause groups your records

according to their value in a speci c eld. Once this has been done,
the aggregate function is applied to each of these groups. The speci c
eld must also be included in the SELECT clause to serve as a label for
the groups. The GROUP BY clause comes at the end of the statement
after the FROM and WHERE clauses.
The GROUP BY clause uses the following syntax:
GROUP BY syntax
SELECT group_field_name, aggregate_function
(value_field_name)
AS result_field_name
FROM table_name
GROUP BY group_field_name;
Example 4.27
Using the GROUP BY clause you could group all of the movies in your database
according to genre and then calculate the average score for each genre. Using this
syntax, you can view the average score of the different genres of movies in your
database with the following query.
GROUP BY example
SELECT genre, AVG(score) AS average_score
FROM tblMovies
GROUP BY genre;
Figure 4.21: Average score of different genres of movies
Activity 4.18
Create queries from tblCarnivores that show the following information.

4.18.1 The number of movies on the list, per genre.
4.18.2 The total income earned, per studio.
4.18.3 The release date of the most recently released movie by each studio.
4.18.4 The average score of movies earning more than R14 000 000 000, per
genre.
4.18.5 The number of movies earning more than R14 000 000 000, per studio.
HAVING
The HAVING clause allows you to add a condition to the grouped
results, so that only groups meeting the condition will be shown. This is
done by placing the HAVING clause after the GROUP BY clause, as
shown in the syntax below.
HAVING syntax
SELECT group_field_name,
aggregate_function(value_field_name)
AS result_field_name
FROM table_name
WHERE condition
GROUP BY group_field_name
HAVING group_condition;
Using this syntax, the group condition will check if an aggregate

function returns a result that is larger than, smaller than, or equal to a
speci c value.
Example 4.28
Create a query that shows number of movies per genre where the genre has ve or
more movies.
HAVING
SELECT genre, COUNT(*) AS num_of_Movies
FROM tblMovies
GROUP BY genre
HAVING COUNT(*) >= 5;
Figure 4.22: Genres with more than 5 movies
The calculated eld name cannot be used in the HAVING clause, only the actual
calculation.
Activity 4.19
Using the HAVING clause, create queries that show the following information.
4.19.1 The number of movies per studio_id, only showing studios with 10 or more
movies.
4.19.2 The total income per studio where the total income earned is greater than
R150 000 000 000.
4.19.3 The average score per genre where there are at least 5 movies in the genre.
Take note
In 4.19.3, the ‘group’ condition
(HAVING clause) uses a different
aggregate function to the aggregate
function in the calculated eld.
Activity 4.20 Aggregate functions
Write down the following queries using pen and paper.

Make sure that all calculated elds have eld names.
Do not show any empty records.
Use appropriate formatting.
4.20.1 Find the earliest release date for any movie.
4.20.2 Find the average score earned by all movies, rounded to 2 decimals.
4.20.3 Find the highest income earned by an animated movie.
4.20.4 Find the number of movies with an income larger than R15 billion.
4.20.5 Find the average income of movies with a score above 90.
4.20.6 Find the average income of movies based on their genre.
4.20.7 Find the maximum score of movies based on their studio.
4.20.8 Find the maximum score of movies based on their studio. Do not show
empty studio_id’s and display the studio names instead of the studio id
number.
4.20.9 Find the minimum score of movies based on their release year (a calculated
column).
4.20.10 Show the total income of all genres that have earned more than R100 billion.
4.20.11 Show the average score of all studios, rounded to 2 decimals, that have a
score above 70.
UNIT
4.5 Data maintenance
In the previous units, you learned how to use the SELECT statement to
select and display data from your database. In this unit, you will learn
how you can make changes to a database by using the INSERT INTO,
UPDATE and DELETE statements. These statements change the data
values in the database.
HOW TO CONNECT AND

INTERACT WITH A DATABASE
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INSERT INTO
To add additional records to a database, you use the INSERT INTO
statement. The syntax for this statement is shown in the code snippet
below:
INSERT INTO
INSERT INTO table_name (field_names)
VALUES (new_values);
When using the INSERT INTO statement, the different eld names are
separated using commas. Similarly, the values added to those elds
must also be separated with commas and must be in the same order
(and data type) as the elds listed in the previous line/listed eld
names. The eld names in the rst bracket can be omitted if values for
ALL the elds are inserted. The values must then be in the same order
as the eld names in the database table.
Example 4.29
Create the following query to add the movie “Aquaman” to the tblMovies table:
INSERT INTO
INSERT INTO tblMovies (id, title, studio_id,
income,
release_date, score, genre, studio_ID)
VALUES (101, "Aquaman", 4, 14353000000,
#2018/12/21#,
55, “Superhero”,);
When inserting data into a table, pay careful attention to the following:
The eld names are spelled correctly.
All eld names are separated by a comma.
The values are added in the same order and data type, as the eld
names.
A value is added to the primary key eld.
The value added to the primary key eld is unique.
All string values are surrounded by double quotation marks.
All date values are surrounded by the hash (#) symbol.
Activity 4.21
Using a pen and paper, write down the queries needed to add the following data to the
correct tables.
4.21.1 tblMovies table:
4.21.2 tblStudios table

Rather than creating three INSERT INTO statements to add movies to
your database, you can use a single query where the new records are
separated by commas, as shown in the syntax below.
INSERT INTO syntax (multiple records)

INSERT INTO table_name (field_names)
VALUES (new_values1),
(new_values2),
…,
(new_values3);
As with a single record, you need to make sure that the values of the
three records are aligned with the eld names. If the record does not
have a value for a speci c eld, a comma should still be added but the
space before the next comma can be empty.
Example 4.30
The code below inserts the three movies Bohemian Rhapsody, Fantastic Beast and
Ant-Man and the Wasp.
INSERT INTO tblMovies (ID, title, studio_id,

income, release_date, score,
genre)
VALUES
(102, "Bohemian Rhapsody", 3, 10846000000,
#2018/11/2#, 49, "Musical"),
(103, "Fantastic Beasts: The Crimes of
Grindelwald", 4, 9069000000,
#2018/11/16#, 52, "Fantasy"),
(104, "Ant-Man and the Wasp", 2, 8718000000,,
70, "Superhero");
Take note
The release_date of Ant-Man and

the Wasp is not known and therefore
left blank between the commas.
UPDATE
The UPDATE statement allows you to make permanent changes to a
record’s values. This is useful to x mistakes, update information or
add missing information to existing records. However, if used
incorrectly, it also has the ability to replace the data from your entire
database with garbage, so it is important to be very careful when using
the UPDATE statement.
The UPDATE statement has the following syntax:
UPDATE syntax
UPDATE table_name
SET field_name1 = Newvalue, field_name2 =
Newvalue, ...
WHERE condition;
As with most SQL queries, you start by selecting the table you will be
using. In the second line, you select the elds and set the new values.
When setting the values, make sure that the values are in the correct
format and follow the eld’s rules (such as adding a unique value for
the primary key). Finally, in the last line, you use the WHERE statement
to select the elds whose values you would like to change.
Example 4.31
In the tblMovies table, the movie ‘Independence Day’ does not have an income or
genre. To add values to these elds, you can use the following query:
UPDATE example
UPDATE tblMovies
SET income = 11444000000, genre = 'Science
Fiction'
WHERE title = 'Independence Day';
The WHERE clause is incredibly important when updating values, since
the changes made by the UPDATE statement will be applied to each
record meeting the WHERE clause conditions. If you leave out the
WHERE clause, you will update each record in your table and have no
way of recovering the old data.
In order to ensure you do not update the incorrect records, follow

these guidelines when creating a WHERE clause:
When updating a single record, you can use the primary key to
select the correct record.
Before making changes to the data, rst create a separate SELECT
query to ensure that you are only selecting the appropriate records
before using UPDATE statement.
With this information in mind, complete the following activity.
Activity 4.22
Take a look at the image below.

4.22.1 Using a pen and paper, write down the queries needed to add the missing
information to the lms.
Take note
The Lord of the Rings: The Two

Towers was released in 2002 on 18
December.
4.22.2 Write down an SQL query that you use to increase the income of all lms
before the year 2000 by 10%.
DELETE FROM
The nal SQL statement you will learn about is DELETE FROM, which
deletes all records meeting the speci ed condition. The syntax for
DELETE FROM is given in the code snippet below.
DELETE syntax
DELETE FROM table_name
WHERE condition;
As with the UPDATE statement, it is incredibly important that only the
records you want to delete meet the WHERE condition, since any
other records meeting this condition will also be deleted.
Example 4.32
To delete the 100th record from the tblMovies table, you could use the following
query.
DELETE examples
DELETE FROM tblMovies
WHERE id = 100;
Activity 4.23
Using pen and paper, write down queries that will delete the following records:
4.23.1 The movie released on 5 May 2017.
4.23.2 The movie called ‘Despicable Me 2’
4.23.3 All superhero movies.
4.23.4 All movies with ‘Star Wars’ in the title.
4.23.5 All movies released before the 5th day of the month.
4.23.6 All movies with a score below 60 and an income below 14 000 000 000.
Take note
First create a backup for the original
disk before you write the update and
delete SQLs
Activity 4.24 Data maintenance
Write down the following queries using pen and paper. Make sure that all calculated
elds have eld names.
4.24.1 Add the following South African lm studio to the tblStudios table.
4.24.2 Add the following lms to the tblMovies table using a single query.
4.24.3 Update the score of the movie with the ID 106 to 46.
4.24.4 Change the genre of all science ction movies to ‘Science-Fiction’.
4.24.5 Delete all movies released before the year 2000 from the tblMovies table.
4.24.6 Delete all studios not based in the United States from the tblStudios table.
UNIT
4.6 Querying two tables
In a relational database, there are many situations where you may want
to select data from more than one table at the same time. To do this,
you will use a special condition in the WHERE clause to link the two
tables.
To create a link between two tables, you use the following syntax.
Join syntax
SELECT table1.field_name, table2.field_name
FROM table1, table2
WHERE table1.foreign_key = table2.primary_key;
As the syntax shows:

The rst line selects the eld names and the tables from which they
must be taken.
The second line lists both the table names in the FROM clause,
separating the table names with a comma.
In the WHERE clause, you set the foreign key of one table equal to
the primary key of the other table. This condition creates the link
between the tables. If this condition is omitted in the WHERE clause
your result set will display a lot of duplicate values.
Example 4.33
The query below will show the name of the lm as well as the name of the studio
that produced it.
Join example
SELECT tblMovies.title, tblStudios.name
FROM tblMovies, tblStudios
WHERE tblMovies.studio_id =
tblStudios.studio_id;
Running this query will return the following results:
Figure 4.23: Movie titles and studio names
To lter this selection, you need to add a second condition to the WHERE command
using the Boolean operator AND. This is shown in the syntax below.
Join syntax with a condition
SELECT table1.field_name, table2.field_name
FROM table1, table2
WHERE table1.foreign_key = table2.primary_key
AND condition;
If you would like to show the movie title and studio names of all movies with a
score greater than or equal to 90, you could create the following SQL query.
Join with the condition example

SELECT tblMovies.title, tblStudios.name
FROM tblMovies, tblStudios
WHERE (tblMovies.studio_id =
tblStudios.studio_id)
AND (tblMovies.score >= 90)
ORDER BY tblMovies.score;
Figure 4.24: Filtered list of movie titles and studio names
The previous SQL-statement got too long and can be shortened by introducing
aliases for the table names. We have used aliases for calculated elds using the AS
keyword, similarly we can use the AS keyword to set single-letter as an alias for a
table name. Why? Count how many times tblMovies was used in the previous SQL
statement and you will see how much shorter the statement will be if tblMovies
gets replaced with the letter M. See the code below.
Note: once a table alias is used it must be applied everywhere in the statement.
using table aliases

SELECT M.title, S.name
FROM tblMovies AS M, tblStudios AS S
WHERE (M.studio_id = S.studio_id) AND
(M.score >= 90)
ORDER BY M.score;
Activity 4.25
By joining the tblMovies and tblStudios table, create queries that show the following
information.
4.25.1 The title and date from the tblMovies table and the name from the tblStudios
table.
4.25.2 The title, score and income from the tblMovies table and the city and province
from the tblStudios table.
4.25.3 The title, score and income from the tblMovies table and the name from the
tblStudios table where the score is below 40.
4.25.4 The title from the tblMovies table and the name from the tblStudios table
where the city is Los Angeles.
4.25.5 The title, score and income from the tblMovies table and the name from the
tblStudios table where the income is above 15000000000.
Activity 4.26 Querying two tables
Write down the following queries and run them using the MoviesSQL App. Make sure
that all calculated elds have eld names.
4.26.1 The title, score and movie studio name for all movies.
4.26.2 The title, release year and studio city for all movies.
4.26.3 All elds from the tblMovies and tblStudios tables.
4.26.4 All elds from movies with a score above 90 not made in Hollywood.
4.26.5 All superhero movies made by Disney.
4.26.6 The average score of all movies, grouped by studio name.
4.26.7 Run the CitiesInSA_App.exe, write down queries that will answer the following
questions, as well as the answers to these questions.
a. What is the largest city in Mpumalanga?
b. In which province is the city Allemansvlei?
c. What is the longitude and latitude of Kwazulu-Natal’s capital city?
d. In which province is the city Nkwali and what is the province’s population?
e. What are the capital cities and largest cities of all provinces with a
population greater than 6 million people?
UNIT
4.7 Database applications
When creating an application that uses SQL, you should not expect
your users to be able to write SQL queries. Instead, you should create
applications that automatically builds the SQL queries based on the
input from your application’s components.
In this unit, you will create an application that builds these queries
automatically using data entered in components.
THE MUSIC SEARCHER APP

For this application, the user interface, database and database
connection has already been created. Your task is to build the SQL
queries. Open the project in the Music searcher folder to enter the
example code and complete Activity 4.27.
Activity 4.27
The user interface is shown below. As the image shows, the user interface contains a
grid with a lot of information about different songs from a “music” table. At the bottom
of the user interface you can perform different searches.
4.27.1 The user must enter an artist name in the artist edit box. When the button
[Search Artist] is clicked, the SQL query should return all records for the artist
entered.
SQL query: a string in Delphi code

'SELECT * FROM music WHERE artist = "' +
sArtist + '"';
NOTE: The double quotation marks around sArtist. This ensures that the value
entered is inserted in the SQL statement as a string so that the test artist =
“some value” won’t give a data type mismatch error. Double quotation marks
are not required if the eld in the condition is not a String. For date tests the
‘#’ symbols instead of the double quotes.
If the user enters ‘Casual’ and click Search Artist output will be:
Search Artist event
var
sSqlQuery : String;
sArtist: String;
Begin
sArtist := edtArtist.Text;
sSqlQuery := 'SELECT * FROM music WHERE artist
= "' + sArtist + '"';
lblSqlQuery.Caption := sSqlQuery;
dmoMusic.qryMusic.SQL.Text := sSqlQuery;
dmoMusic.qryMusic.active := true;
end;
4.27.2 When the button [Search Album] is clicked a SQL query is needed to search
for the any album containing the word entered. Let sAlbum be the variable to
hold the user input. Remember the LIKE operator and wildcard ‘%’ must be
used.

‘SELECT * FROM music WHERE album LIKE "%' +
sAlbum + '%"';
Search Album event

var
sSqlQuery : String;
sAlbum : String;
begin
sAlbum := edtAlbum.Text;
sSqlQuery := 'SELECT * FROM music WHERE album
LIKE "%' + sAlbum +
'%"';
dmoMusic.qryMusic.Active := True;
end;
4.27.3 When the button [Search Number] is clicked a SQL query must be built that
includes the eld selected, the relation operator selected and the value
entered in the edit. Let sField, sSymbol and sValue hold the data entered by
the user then the SQL statement will be:

'SELECT * FROM music WHERE '+ sField + sSymbol
+ sValue;
If the user is searching for songs released in the year 2010 the output will be:
Search Number event
var
sSqlQuery : String;
sField, sSymbol, sValue: String;
Begin
case cbxField.ItemIndex of
0: sField := 'year';
1: sField := 'duration';
2: sField := 'popularity';
3: sField := 'loudness';
4: sField := 'beats_per_minute';
end;
case cbxSymbol.ItemIndex of
0: sSymbol := ' = ';
1: sSymbol := ' > ';
2: sSymbol := ' < ';
end;
sValue := edtNumber.Text;
sSqlQuery := 'SELECT * FROM music WHERE '+
sField + sSymbol + sValue;
DmoMusic.qryMusic.active := true;
end;
Did you know
The wildcard characters in Delphi are

the percentage symbol (%) for zero to
many characters, and the underscore
symbol (_) for a single character.
Activity 4.28
4.28.1 Provide code for the [Search Song] and [Search Genre] buttons to complete
the Music Searcher App. Use wild cards in both so that any song or any genre
with the word entered can be found.
4.28.2 Provide code for the [Search all] button as follows:
• Create a query that always searches for all elds (using the AND
operator).
• Place each of the values from the text boxes into the search query.
• If a textbox does not contain a value, replace this value with a wildcard
character that will match all records.
Congratulations, you just created an application that allows users to

search through thousands of songs with the click of a button!
Activity 4.29 Using data from components
Open the application saved in your Cities of South Africa folder. Create the following
events for this application:
4.29.1 An event to insert new cities to your cities table.
4.29.2 An event to update the population of your provinces table.
4.29.3 An event to delete all cities meeting speci c criteria from your cities table.
4.29.4 Using this application, complete the following tasks:
a. Add any city of your choice to the database.
b. Update the population of Gauteng to 14 717 000 (the 2018 estimate).
c. Delete the city with the ID of 6800.
CONSOLIDATION ACTIVITY Chapter 4: Databases and SQL
QUESTION 1
1.1 The following database called students shows the details of a number of
students attending a university, as well as the students’ average for their
course’s subjects. Use this table to answer the questions that follow.
Write a SQL query to:
a. View all the information, sorted from the lowest student number to the
highest student number.
b. Show a list of courses without duplicates.
c. Show the name, surname and average of all the students that have the
character ‘a’ in either their name or surname.
1.2 The following database called Appliances shows the products sold at an
appliance and electronics store. It shows the price for these products in
Rands and how many units of the product are stored in the store’s
warehouse.
Write a SQL query to:
a. view all the products that have a price above R2000?.
b. show the total value of all the stock.
QUESTION 2
For this application, open the project saved in the 04 – Question 2. Save your
project.
The Petersen Group CC wants to use software to assist their staff in answering
queries from management. In the development of the software, a database called
BandB.mdb has been created. The program is incomplete. Your task will be to
complete the program that will be used to answer queries from management.
2.1 Open the data module and ensure that all the database components have
been connected correctly. You should see the following user interface.
Complete the SQL statements for each button as indicated by questions 2.2
to 2.7 that follow:
2.2 Complete the code in the [List] button by formulating an SQL statement to
display all the elds from tblClients table sorted by Surname and then by
FName ( rst name).
2.3 Complete the code in the [Mr Ferreira] button by creating a query that will
calculate the total amount owed by Mr Ferreira (ClientNo eld equal to 1).
This is a calculated answer. The name of the calculated eld must be Total
Due and the result must be formatted to display the amount with TWO
decimal places.
2.4 All the bookings for the English football fans have been cancelled. Complete
the code for the [English] button by creating a query to delete all English
clients (Nationality eld equal to English).
2.5 The group uses a 25% markup when calculating the selling price. Using the
tblOrders table, complete the code for the [Cost] button by creating a query
that will list the Date, Category, SellingPrice and Cost (selling price minus the
25% mark-up) for each item ordered by Guiseppe Ferreira (ClientNo eld
equal to 1). Cost is a calculated eld and must be named Cost.
Use the following formula to calculate the cost: Cost = Selling price × 0.75
2.6 The Petersen Group has decided that they want to support all tourists by
giving them a R5 discount on the selling price of every item they have
ordered if the item’s selling price is R30 or more. Complete the code for the
[Discount] button by writing a query that will reduce the selling price of the
relevant items by R5 in the tblOrders table.
2.7 Complete the code for the [Faltemeyer] button by writing a query that will add
the following client data to the tblClients table:
Mr Harald Faltemeyer, ID 7407185683074, Swedish
NB: IDNumber eld only accepts strings, while the SA eld only accepts
boolean values.
QUESTION 3
The city of Coruscant has called for the development of an application to keep track
of drivers that violate the city’s speed limits.
The Traf cViolations.mdb database contains two tables called tblOwners and
tblViolations.
The tblOwners table has the following elds:
The tblViolations table is structured with the following elds:
The OwnerID eld has been used to link the two tables. The dates and times
captured in the database are stored as strings.
Complete SQL the code to answer QUESTION 3.1. to QUESTION 3.5.
3.1 All elds must be displayed for all records in the tblOwners table, sorted from
Z to A on surname.
3.2 Concatenate the following in a eld called Owner for all records in the
tblOwners table that were born in or after the year 1993 (also display the
date of birth):
• Surname followed by a comma and a space.
• The rst letter of the owner name followed by a dot ( . ).
3.3 Using the Violations table, display the average speed recorded for each
location where speeding violations were captured in a new eld called
AverageSpeed. The averages need to be rounded off to ONE decimal place.
3.4 Use both tables to display the surname of each owner and the number of
traf c violations belonging to each owner in a eld called ViolationCount.
3.5 Two records in the tblOwners table have been captured by error and need to
be removed from the database. Remove the records identi ed by the keys
(OwnerID) 2987593875 and 9867398476 from the tblOwners table.
ANNEXURE Shneiderman’s ‘Eight
A Golden Rules of Interface
Design’
These rules were obtained from the text Designing the User Interface
by Ben Shneiderman. Shneiderman proposed this collection of
principles that are derived heuristically from experience and applicable
in most interactive systems after being properly re ned, extended, and
interpreted. To improve the usability of an application it is important to
have a well designed interface. Shneiderman’s ‘Eight Golden Rules of
Interface Design’ are a guide to good interaction design.
1. STRIVE FOR CONSISTENCY.

Consistent sequences of actions should be required in similar
situations; identical terminology should be used in prompts, menus,
and help screens; and consistent commands should be employed
throughout.
2. ENABLE FREQUENT USERS TO USE SHORTCUTS.

As the frequency of use increases, so do the user’s desires to reduce
the number of interactions and to increase the pace of interaction.
Abbreviations, function keys, hidden commands, and macro facilities
are very helpful to an expert user.
3. OFFER INFORMATIVE FEEDBACK.

For every operator action, there should be some system feedback. For
frequent and minor actions, the response can be modest, while for
infrequent and major actions, the response should be more
substantial.
4. DESIGN DIALOG TO YIELD CLOSURE.

Sequences of actions should be organized into groups with a
beginning, middle, and end. The informative feedback at the
completion of a group of actions gives the operators the satisfaction of
accomplishment, a sense of relief, the signal to drop contingency plans
and options from their minds, and an indication that the way is clear to
prepare for the next group of actions.
5. OFFER SIMPLE ERROR HANDLING.

As much as possible, design the system so the user cannot make a
serious error. If an error is made, the system should be able to detect
the error and offer simple, comprehensible mechanisms for handling
the error.
6. PERMIT EASY REVERSAL OF ACTIONS.

This feature relieves anxiety, since the user knows that errors can be
undone; it thus encourages exploration of unfamiliar options. The units
of reversibility may be a single action, a data entry, or a complete group
of actions.
7. SUPPORT INTERNAL LOCUS OF CONTROL.

Experienced operators strongly desire the sense that they are in
charge of the system and that the system responds to their actions.
Design the system to make users the initiators of actions rather than
the responders.
8. REDUCE SHORTTERM MEMORY LOAD.

The limitation of human information processing in shortterm memory
requires that displays be kept simple, multiple page displays be
consolidated, windowmotion frequency be reduced, and suf cient
training time be allotted for codes, mnemonics, and sequences of
actions.
[Source:
http://www.cs.utexas.edu/users/almstrum/cs370/elvisino/rules.html,
accessed 13 June 2019]
ANNEXURE 10 usability heuristics for
B user interface design
By Jakob Nielsen on January 1, 1995
Summary: Jakob Nielsen’s 10 general principles for interaction design.

They are called ‘heuristics’ because they are broad rules of thumb and
not speci c usability uidelines.
VISIBILITY OF SYSTEM STATUS

The system should always keep users informed about what is going
on, through appropriate feedback within reasonable time.
MATCH BETWEEN SYSTEM AND THE REAL WORLD

The system should speak the users’ language, with words, phrases
and concepts familiar to the user, rather than system-oriented terms.
Follow real-world conventions, making information appear in a natural
and logical order.
USER CONTROL AND FREEDOM

Users often choose system functions by mistake and will need a clearly
marked ‘emergency exit’ to leave the unwanted state without having to
go through an extended dialogue. Support undo and redo.
CONSISTENCY AND STANDARDS
Users should not have to wonder whether different words, situations,
or actions mean the same thing. Follow platform conventions.
ERROR PREVENTION
Even better than good error messages is a careful design which
prevents a problem from occurring in the rst place. Either eliminate
error-prone conditions or check for them and present users with a
con rmation option before they commit to the action.
(Read full article on preventing user errors.)
RECOGNITION RATHER THAN RECALL

Minimize the user’s memory load by making objects, actions, and
options visible. The user should not have to remember information
from one part of the dialogue to another. Instructions for use of the
system should be visible or easily retrievable whenever appropriate.
(Read full article on recognition vs. recall in UX.)
FLEXIBILITY AND EFFICIENCY OF USE

Accelerators — unseen by the novice user — may often speed up the
interaction for the expert user such that the system can cater to both
inexperienced and experienced users. Allow users to tailor frequent
actions.
AESTHETIC AND MINIMALIST DESIGN

Dialogues should not contain information which is irrelevant or rarely
needed. Every extra unit of information in a dialogue competes with the
relevant units of information and diminishes their relative visibility.
HELP USERS RECOGNIZE, DIAGNOSE, AND RECOVER FROM ERRORS

Error messages should be expressed in plain language (no codes),
precisely indicate the problem, and constructively suggest a solution.
HELP AND DOCUMENTATION

Even though it is better if the system can be used without
documentation, it may be necessary to provide help and
documentation. Any such information should be easy to search,
focused on the user’s task, list concrete steps to be carried out, and
not be too large.
Did you know
For more information on interface

design, you can visit these websites:
Bruce ‘Tog’ Tognazzini’s list of basic
principles for interface design
(https://asktog.com/atc/principles-of-
interaction-design/). The list is slightly
too long for heuristic evaluation but
serves as a useful checklist.
Examples of the 10 heuristics in Web
applications
(http://designingwebinterfaces.com/6
-tips-for-a-great- ex-ux-part-5).
The 10 usability heuristics applied to
everyday life (just for fun)
(https://www.zenhaiku.com/archives/
usability_applied_to_life.html).
Full set of 2,397 usability guidelines
(across multiple reports)
(https://www.nngroup.com/reports/).
I originally developed the heuristics for heuristic evaluation in

collaboration with Rolf Molich in 1990 [Molich and Nielsen 1990;
Nielsen and Molich 1990]. I since re ned the heuristics based on a
factor analysis of 249 usability problems [Nielsen 1994a] to derive a set
of heuristics with maximum explanatory power, resulting in this revised
set of heuristics [Nielsen 1994b].
REFERENCES
Molich, R., and Nielsen, J. (1990). Improving a human-computer
dialogue, Communications of the ACM 33, 3 (March), 338-348.
Nielsen, J., and Molich, R. (1990). Heuristic evaluation of user
interfaces, Proc. ACM CHI’90 Conf. (Seattle, WA, 1-5 April), 249-256.
Nielsen, J. (1994a). Enhancing the explanatory power of usability
heuristics. Proc. ACM CHI’94 Conf. (Boston, MA, April 24-28), 152-
158.
Nielsen, J. (1994b). Heuristic evaluation. In Nielsen, J., and Mack, R.L.
(Eds.),
Usability Inspection Methods, John Wiley Sons, New York, NY.
Note: Many people ask if they can use these heuristics in their own
work. Yes, but please credit Jakob Nielsen and provide the address for
this page [nngroup.com/articles/ten-usability-heuristics] or cite the
paper above [Nielsen 1994a]. If you want to print copies of this page or
reproduce the content online, however, please see the Copyright link
below for details.
(Copyright ) 2005 by Jakob Nielsen. ISSN 1548-5552
(Copyright ) 1998-2017 Nielsen Norman Group, All Rights Reserved.
ANNEXURE Using SQL in Delphi
C
So far, you have only used SQL in Microsoft Access. In this Annexure,
you will learn how to use SQL in Delphi. To do this, you will create a
simple database application with a single textbox that you can use to
enter SQL commands. Once an SQL command is entered and the
Filter button is pressed, the grid will show the ltered database.
To create this application, you will need to use the TADOQuery

component which can be found from the dbGo list in the Tool Palette.
This component, together with the standard TADOConnection
component will be added to a data module, from where they can be
used in your application.
TADOQuery component in a dbGo list
Once the database connection has been set up and the TADOQuery
component has been added to your data module, you can use the
query component to create and SQL query. This is done by adding a
string with the query to the SQL.Text property, as will be shown in the
examples below.
Example C Creating the SQL connection in Delphi
To create the SQL connection in Delphi:

1. Create a new project and save it in the folder Best Movie Statistics.
3. Right click on the executable project le in the Project Manager, select Add
New and click on the Other option. This will open the New Items window.
4. Select Data Module and click OK.
5. Save the data module as movies_d in the project folder.
6. Change the data module’s name to dmoMovies.
7. Add a TADOConnection component, a TADOQuery component and a
TDataSource component to the data module.
8. Rename the components to conMovies, qryMovies and dsMovies.
9. Select conMovies and click on the three dots button next to its
ConnectionString property.
10. Click on the Build button.
11. Select the Microsoft Jet 4.0 OLE DB Provider and click Next.
12. Click on the three dots button, select the Movies.mdb le and click Open.
13. Remove the ‘path’ from the connection string to be able to open the
application on other computers 14. Test the connection, then click OK. Click
OK again.
15. Change the LoginPrompt property of the database connection to False, and the
Connected property to True.
16. Select qryMovies and set its Connection property to conMovies.
17. Select dsMovies and set its DataSet property to qryMovies. This connects the
data source to your movies query.
18. Add movies_d to the uses list at the top of your main form.
19. Save and test your application. Your application should now open without a
problem.
Congratulations on successfully creating the SQL query connection! As this
example shows, creating the connection is very similar to using a TADOTable
component to connect to a database. However, as the next example will show, the
query component is more exible as it allows you to enter different SQL queries.
Example C Using SQL in Delphi
To create the SQL connection in Delphi:

1. Create a new project and save it in the folder Best Movie Statistics.
3. Right click on the executable project le in the Project Manager, select Add
New and click on the Other option. This will open the New Items window.
Did you know

Remember, whenever you access
a component from a different form
or data module, you always start
by rst accessing the form or data
module.
4. In your event, set the Active property of your qryMovies component to True.
5. Save and test your application by entering a valid SQL query in the text box
and the pressing the [Query] button. You should see that data appear in your
grid component.
Well done, you now have a Delphi application that can create run SQL queries for
you.
While this application is very straightforward, it shows how SQL

queries can be run in Delphi. A later unit will show a more complex
example of a Delphi application using SQL.
ANNEXURE Component names and
D description
ANNEXURE The ASCII table
E
In 1963, the American Standards Association published a table which
linked 127 different letters and symbols to numbers. This table was
called the ASCII table, which is short for the American Standard Code
for Information Interchange.
With ASCII, the rst 32 characters in the table are programming

characters that cannot be shown on the screen. These include
characters like a carriage return character (which shows where a new
line should start) and a horizontal tab character which added some
horizontal space. The full list of these 32 programming characters is
given in the table below.
Table 14.1: The programming characters
The next 95 characters are all visible characters that you can see on
the screen.
Table 14.2: Visible characters
The nal 127th character is the DELETE character, which is used when
something needs to be removed or deleted.
ANNEXURE Enrichment
F
LISTS
Lists work in a similar way to arrays. They allow you to store a large
number of elements that can be accessed using an index and which
must all be of the same type. However, lists differ from arrays in three
important ways:
The size of a list is not xed.
Lists contain useful, built-in methods that allow you to manipulate
the list and the data in the list.
The index of the rst list element is always 0.
Lists are created in three steps:

Add the “Generics.Collections” to your application’s “uses” section.
De ne the list in the variables section.
Create the list in an event.
Once the “Generics.Collections” library has been added to your

project, you can declare your variable in the variable section as follows.
var
lName : TList<Type>;
Finally, the list needs to be created in an event. This is done with the
following code:
lName := TList<Type>.Create;
While it takes a bit of effort to de ne the list, once it is done you can
take advantage of the many advanced methods that are included in
the TList object. These methods include:
You have already learned about things such as Double, String, Array,
and List. But what if you are dealing with a group of data types that
form a single entity, that is, different but related data types that need to
be grouped together to represent an entity – something similar to an ID
card or an account. In this case it would be useful to consider the data
as a special type, something that not only contains the data but also
the functions that may be applied to it. We refer to this as
encapsulation.
The TList type in Delphi is an example of this type of data. It contains

all the essential features to hold items in a list as well as the functions
to manage the list. We call the entity TList a class, and instances
(objects) of this class will each have its own data plus the given
functions to manage the data. (See the simpli ed Tlist API in Appendix
A.) In the code snippet below, constructors are used to create a list
object and button object.
Constructor example listNames := TList<String>.Create;

btnDynamic := TButton.Create(Self);
In the rst line, the Create function is used to create a TList object with
the type String and assign it to the TList object “listNames”. In the
second line, a TButton object is created and assigned to the object
name “btnDynamic”. In this example, the constructor function requires
the “Self” parameter. We refer to this method of abstracting the
essential common features of an entity to create a data type, as
Object Oriented Programming (OOP). In this way, the data structure
becomes a class for creating objects (entities) that include both data
and functions (code). Programmers can use this to create instances of
the entity much like using the TList object to create a number of lists
with in your program.
New words
data type – a particular kind of data

item, as de ned by the value it can
take, the programming language
used, or the operations that can be
performed on it.
abstracting – to create an object
and assign it to an object name
In the next example we will demonstrate how useful it is to have a list

of objects that can be ltered to get information.
Example F.1 Adding data to an array
Alternative: Using TStringList to extract data form a delimited string

You can use a TStringList to extract the parts between the delimiters from a
delimited string. In this example we do this in the inner loop. You can read the data
in a loop in exactly the same way as the example above. However sometimes when
you have a small le and you may want to use the method below, it puts the
complete le into a TStringList you can then use a second TStringList to remove
the delimiters as illustrated.
In this example we do not need to specify the delimiter as it defaults to ‘,’.
Var
sData: String;
i, j: Integer;
inputLines: TStringList;
oneLine: TStringList;
// aData : Array[1..5, 1..7] of Integer; (Global variable) begin
inputLines := TStringList.Create;
oneLine := TStringList.Create;
inputLines.LoadFromFile('marks.csv'); //put le into inputLines For i := 1 To 5
Do
Begin
oneLine.delimitedText := inputList[i]; // default delimiter is ','
For j := 1 To 7 Do
aData[i,j] := strtoint(oneLine[j-1]);//array 1-7 stringlist 0-6
End;

Displaying the array data
CSVIntoArray;
for i := 1 to Length(aData) do
begin
sOutput := '';
for j := 1 to Length(aData[1]) do
sOutput := sOutput + IntToStr(aData[i, j]) + #09;
lbxResults.Items.Add(sOutput);
end;
This code loops through and creates rows of data separated by a tab space
character. Once a single row has been saved in the sOutput variable, it is added to
the listbox before a new row is started.
Take note, since you are looping through the rows of data, you need to place the
row variable (“i”) in the outer-loop and the column variable (“j”) in the inner-loop.
Example F.2 Monte Carlo simulator
A Monte Carlo simulation is a mathematical tool used to determine how likely

certain outcomes are in uncertain situations. Rather than trying to use complex
mathematics to calculate an exact probability, mathematicians create a computer
simulation with all the relevant variables and then run hundreds of thousands of
tests, recording the result of each test. After these tests have been run, the
mathematicians can look at the results to see how often each outcome occurred.
The Monte Carlo simulation is named after the suburb Monte Carlo in the city of
Monaco, which is famous for having one of the most prestigious casinos in the
world. The name Monte Carlo was chosen because Monte Carlo simulations are
great at analysing gambling probabilities and odds.
Figure 14.2: The Monte Carlo Casino in Monaco (photo by Bohyunlee)
In Blackjack, players with a hand value larger than 16 are likely to win, while
players with a hand value less than 16 are likely to lose (unless both cards have the
same value).
Did you know
Many of the James Bond lms,

including Casino Royale, are set at
the Monte Carlo Casino.
For this example, you need to build
a Monte Carlo simulator that will
analyse the probabilities in
Blackjack. Speci cally, you want to
know how often someone will pick
up one of the following
combinations of cards:
An ace and a jack (called
Blackjack).
Two cards with the same
number. Two cards with a
combined value of exactly 21.
Two cards with a combined
value larger than 16 and smaller
than 21.
value of exactly 16.
value of under 16.
The value of cards is equal to the
number on the card (so a two of
hearts has a value of 2), except for
the king, queen and jack which
have a value of 10, and an ace
which has a value of 11.
To create the Monte Carlo simulator, you will need to: 1. Create a user interface.
2. Create a virtual deck of cards.
3. Create a loop that will run the simulations a user-determined number of times.
4. Select two random cards from the deck (without being able to select the same
card twice).
5. Calculate the combined value of the cards.
6. Record the category of result (blackjack, smaller than 16, and so forth).
7. Display the results.
Open the project in the F1 – Monte Carlo simulator folder and add code as
described in the solution below: Solution To create this program, you needed to
complete a number of tasks. For each of these tasks, there is more than one
possible solution, so the code below will simply show one way to create the Monte
Carlo simulator.
The rst step is to create the user interface.
The user interface below simply shows the different criteria as well
as the number of draws that matched these criteria.
Create a deck of cards.
In this solution, a list is used to create a deck of cards since the list
functions could be useful to add or delete cards from the list.
However, an array can also be used.
Creating the deck of cards lCards := TList<Integer>.Create;

for i := 1 to 52 do
begin
iCardValue := i mod 13;
if iCardValue = 0 then
iCardValue := 13;
lCards.Add(iCardValue)
end;
The FOR-loop runs 52 times, once for each card in the deck. By
calculating the remainder of i mod 13, the loop ensures that all the
values are between 1 to 13 (ace to king). These values are then
added to the iCards list.
Create the loop that will run a speci c number of times. This loop
is shown below.
Game loop iSimulations := StrToInt(edtNumberOfGames.Text); for j := 1 to

iSimulations do
begin
// Select two random cards
// Calculate the value of the two cards
// Categorise the cards based on their values end;
Once you have your game loop, select two cards inside the loop.
The code below shows how these cards are selected.
Selecting two cards iRandom1 := Random(52);

iRandom2 := Random(52);
while iRandom1 = iRandom2 do

aSelectedCard[1] := lCards[iRandom1];
INTRODUCTION TO THE MONTE

CARLO SIMULATION
https://www.youtube.com/watch
?v=pDExObTMHTs
The code starts by selecting two random numbers between 0 and
51. These numbers will be used to draw cards from the list of
cards. Since the same card cannot be drawn twice, a WHILE-DO
loop will repeat until iRandom1 and iRandom2 have different
values. Once you have two unique integers, they are used to
select two cards from the iCards list and assign it to the
aSelectedCard[1] and aSelectedCard[2] array elements.
The cards selected at this stage have a value of 1 (ace) to 13
(king). However, not all cards have the same value as their number.
Speci cally, cards with the number 11, 12 and 13 (jack, queen and
king) have a value of 10, while cards with the number 1 (ace) have
a value of 11.
The next step is to store the values of the two selected cards.
Selecting two cards iRandom1 := Random(52);

while iRandom1 = iRandom2 do

In this code, a FOR-loop is used to assign values to both the

selected cards. Inside the FOR-loop, a case statement looks at
the selected card’s number and assigns an appropriate value to
the aCardValue[1] and aCardValue[2] array elements. Once the
values for the two cards has been assigned, they can be added
together to obtain the total value.
At this point, you know the value of both the cards as well as the
speci c cards that were selected. The last two steps is to assign
the cards to a category before displaying the values for the
categories in your UI.
Categorising the cards Case iTotalValue of

1..15 : iBelow16 := iBelow16 + 1;
16 : iExactly16 := iExactly16 + 1; 17..20 : iAbove16 := iAbove16 + 1;
21 : iExactly21 := iExactly21 + 1; End;

// Checks if the cards have the same number if aSelectedCard[1] =
aSelectedCard[2] then iSameNumber := iSameNumber + 1;

// Checks if an ace and jack were selected if ((aSelectedCard[1] = 1) and
(aSelectedCard[2] = 11)) or ((aSelectedCard[2] = 1) and (aSelectedCard[1]
= 11)) then iBlackJack := iBlackJack + 1;
The CASE statement at the start of the code snippet looks at the
total card value and increments the category variable based on
this value. Once this is done, a separate IF-THEN statement is
used to check if the two selected cards have the same number.
Finally, an IF-THEN statement is used to check if one of the cards
is an ace (1) and the other a jack (11) in order to increment the
iBlackJack variable. This is the last step that occurs inside the
loop.
Once outside of the loop, all the values are converted to strings
and written to the labels.
Writing the values lblTotalGames.Caption := IntToStr(iSimulations);

lblExactly21.Caption := IntToStr(iExactly21); lblAbove16.Caption :=
IntToStr(iAbove16); lblExactly16.Caption := IntToStr(iExactly16);
lblBelow16.Caption := IntToStr(iBelow16); lblBlackJack.Caption :=
IntToStr(iBlackJack); lblSameNumber.Caption := IntToStr(iSameNumber);
By running this application, you will see that your chances of

picking up a BlackJack is roughly 1.2% (or 12 000 / 1 000 000)!
Glossary
abstracting to create an object and assign it to an object name

access speci ers is a de ning code element that can be
determine which elements of a program are allowed to access a
speci c variable or other piece of data append to open an
existing le for writing, set the le pointer to the end of the le
and allows you to add data to the le append to add an empty
row to the end of your database table array is a data structure
that store a set values (elements) of the same type liked to a
single variable name assume supposed to be the case, without
proof
attributes the data elds of the class
behaviour the code that provides the interaction with the attributes
binary search is an algorithm used in computer science to locate
a speci ed value (key) within an array bubble sort to compare
adjacent elements
Caesar cipher a substitution cipher on which each letter in plaintext

is ‘shifted’ a certain number of places down the alphabet
calculated eld the eld that is calculated each time you run your
query Ceil to round a real number up to the highest integer value
CHR to return the corresponding character of an ASCII code
circular dependency to cause an application to crash
CompareText to compare two strings for equality, ignoring case
concatenates to joins strings together into one result string
conditional to put its condition rst before executing the looping
back D
data module a sealed, removable storage module containing
magnetic disks and their associated access arms and read/write
heads data type a particular kind of data item, as de ned by the
value it can take, the programming language used, or the
operations that can be performed on it.
DEC to decrement an ordinal type variable
decremental the act or process of decreasing or becoming gradually
less Delete to delete a number of characters from a string
starting from a start position delimiters to show the start and
ends of individual pieces of data dynamic instantiation when a
component or object is created during run-time E
encapsulation the grouping of attributes and behaviour in one entity
encrypted message to encode information to prevent anyone
other than its intended recipient from viewing it end of le <eof>
to indicate the end of a le when the le is saved end of line
<eoln> to indicate the end of the line when the [Enter] button is
pressed Entity Relationship Diagram to show the relationships of
entity sets stored in a database event an occurrence of
something
exception is generally an error condition or event that interrupts the
ow of your program Exception Handling a way to prevent a
program from crashing when a le does not exist F
FileExists to determine whether a le exists or not
rst argument is a string that holds instructions for formatting Floor
to round a real number down to the lowest integer value formal
parameter to declare variable(s) next to the procedure name Frac
to return the decimal part of a real number
function the operation of something in a particular way
global is a programming language construct, a variable that is

declared outside and function and is accessible to all the
functions throughout the program H
homogenous elements of the same type
INC to increment the ordinal type variable passed to it

incremental relating to or denoting an increase or addition
independent to run on its own
index the position of the element in an array
inner loop the inner part of a nested loop
Insert to insert one string into another string
insert to add an empty row at the current position of your database
table instance an example or single occurrence of something
instances of the class a data type that describes the attributes and
behaviour of the object to be model electronically instantiate
represent as or by an instant
linear search is a process that checks every element in the list

sequentially until the desired element is found local variable
variables that have a local scope
logical le is a variable (in RAM) that points to the physical le on
your storage medium LowerCase to converts uppercase
characters in a string to lowercase Luhn algorithm is a simple
checksum formula used t validate a variety of identi cation
numbers, such as credit card numbers, IMEI numbers, and
Canadian Social Insurance Numbers M
method overloading to have more than one method with the same
name method overloading to have more than one method with
the same name method signature is the number of arguments
and their data type method signature to name a method and its
formal parameters list methods prede ned instructions
naming convention to name things (generally agreed scheme)

non-local is a variable that is not de ned within the local scope null
to represent an empty value
Object-Oriented Programming (OOP) refers to a type of computer

programming (software design) in which programmers de ne not
only the data type of a data structure, but also the types of
operations (functions) that can be applied to the data structure
ORD to return the ordinal value of a character
outer loop the outer part of a nested loop
physical le to name an external le name found on a storage

device and contains the actual data Pi is a prede ned constant
that returns a real number giving a useful approximation of the
value Pi Pos to return to the start position of one string within
another string as an integer post command to permanently save
the values to the database table POWER to raise a base to a
power and returns a real answer
procedure an of cial way of doing something
properties the components or building blocks
Random to generate a random number from 0 to less than 1

RandomRange to generate a random integer number from Num1 to
one less than Num2
related information information belonging in the same group
relational database a database structured to recognise relations
between stored items of information reusability is an important
OOP principle
Round to round a real number to an integer value
S
second argument holds the values that needs to be converted into a
formatted string selection sort to select the element that should
go in each array position either in ascending or descending order
sequence SETLENGTH to change the size of a string
sorted to sort an element in numerical order
SQRT to return the square root of a number
step through to step through means that you are working through a
program line by line STR to convert an integer or real number
into a string, with optional basic formatting T
Trunc to remove or chop off the decimal part of the real number. It
returns an integer after the truncation U
unambiguous not open to more than one interpretation
Upcase to convert a single letter character to uppercase
UpperCase to converts lowercase characters in a string to
uppercase user-de ned is methods written by programmers
themselves
VAL to convert a string to a numeric value

validate to try and lessen the number of errors during the process of
data input in programming value parameter when a procedure is
called, memory locations are created for each of the formal
parameters and the values of the arguments are assigned to the
corresponding formal parameters. Changes made to a value
parameter will not affect its corresponding argument. When the
procedure is exited, the memory locations of the formal
parameters ‘die’ away
ANNEXURE
Notes
Contents
Cover
Title Page
Copyright Page
Contents
Term 1
Chapter 1 Programming fundamentals
Introduction
Unit 1.2 Procedures and functions in the Delphi runtime
libraries
Unit 1.5 Databases
Term 2
Chapter 2 Object-oriented programming
Introduction
Chapter 3 Two-dimensional arrays
Introduction
Unit 3.1 2D arrays
Term 3
Chapter 4 Databases and SQL
Introduction
Annexure A – Shneiderman’s ‘Eight Golden Rules of Interface
Design’
Annexure B – 10 usability heuristics for user interface design
Annexure C – Using SQL in Delphi
Annexure D – Component names and description
Annexure E – The ASCII table
Annexure F – Enrichment
Glossary

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MTN South Africa, through MTN SA Foundation, is a proud supporter of the CAT and IT

As an organisation rooted in technology, we believe in providing a new bold digital world to

Information Technology Practical Book Grade 12

Quality Assurance team for Information Technology

Jugdeshchand Sewnanen, Julian Carstens, Magdalena Brits, Shamiel Dramat, Shani

Nunkumar and Zainab Karriem Restrictions

video form – for a pro t seeking purpose.

Rights of other copyright holders

Chapter 1 Programming fundamentals

Chapter 2 Object-oriented programming

Chapter 3 Two-dimensional arrays

Chapter 4 Databases and SQL

Annexure A – Shneiderman’s ‘Eight Golden Rules of Interface Design’

Annexure B – 10 usability heuristics for user interface design

Annexure C – Using SQL in Delphi

Annexure E – The ASCII table

Programming and programming languages, much like real languages,

For you to master programming, try to work through as many of the

Programming is not only about knowing and using the programming

‘Take note’ and ‘Did you know’ boxes

Unit 1.1 Problem solving

Unit 1.2 Procedures and functions in the Delphi

Unit 1.3 Procedures and functions

Unit 1.4 User interface design

Unit 1.5 Databases

At the end of this chapter you should be able to:

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING: A GUIDE FOR YOUR PAT

Did you know

Programming is a way of thinking –

First solve the problem, then write

In Grade 10 we looked at the user story. This tool is well-suited to help

Example 1.1 Creating a detailed implementation plan

TEMPLATE: USER STORIES

Figure 1.1: Activity diagram – Overview of system (UML)

We call this evolutionary prototyping and it demonstrates the logical

In Unit 1.4 of this chapter, we will

WHAT ABOUT THE DATA?

In Grade 10 you also looked at a tool called the ‘noun-verb analysis’.

Nicholas Wirth used this title on his

Double – The Double data type

Test the program for any calculation errors or logical problems. To do

Your program might:

DATE AND TIME

To create a DateTime variable, you can use one of the techniques

To do calculations with a DateTime variable, you add (or subtract) the

Seven days ago

To add or subtract times, you need to add or subtract the appropriate

It is usually easier to remember the

One of the biggest advantages of the DateTime variable is the

Example 1.2 Word Clock

Once you are done, run and save your application.

ARRAYS AND FILES

aName : Array[FirstIndex..LastIndex] of Type;

For-loops and arrays

The following functions can be used to write to or read from a TextFile.

While loop to read les

Answer the following questions using a pen and paper.

CODE YOUR OWN

For these reasons, professional programmers try to make use of

Both procedures and functions can accept variable inputs (called