The Road to Delphi

Delphi – Free Pascal – Oxygene


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A New project – Delphi (Object Pascal) WMI class code generator

The lasts weeks I’ve been working in a new project, called Delphi WMI class code generator. let me tell you about it.

The WMI (Windows Management Instrumentation) is formed by many classes, this classes exposes properties and methods. Also each class, property and method have qualifiers which are something like attributes, these qualifiers include descriptions about the classes, method, parameters or properties, types and many more useful information.

Now to access the properties of a wmi class from object pascal code is a very easy task, as was shown in this post, but by the other side to access the methods is little more complicated, because you need to known if the method is static or dynamic. also you must deal in some cases with complicated parameters which must be variants arrays, objects or datetime (in UTC format). and finally some of these parameters can be optional. so if you are only an occasional user of the WMI you must figure out a lot of thinks before to use it.

Because that and to the experience gained when I wrote the WMI Delphi Code Creator application, I decided to go a couple of steps forward and create tool which facilitate the access to the properties and methods exposed by the WMI classes from Object Pascal code.

The result was a code generator which parse the very rich meta-data of the wmi classes and extract the properties and methods and convert into a Object pascal class.

Now Let me show a sample code generated by the tool for the Win32_Share Wmi class.

/// <summary>
/// Unit generated using the Delphi Wmi class generator tool, Copyright Rodrigo Ruz V. 2010
/// Application version 0.1.0.120
/// WMI version 7600.16385
/// Creation Date 24-12-2010 09:38:11
/// Namespace root\CIMV2 Class Win32_Share
/// MSDN info about this class http://msdn2.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wmisdk/wmi/Win32_Share.asp
/// </summary>

{$IFDEF FPC}
 {$MODE DELPHI} {$H+}
 {$DEFINE OLD_DELPHI}
{$ENDIF}

unit uWin32_Share;

interface

uses
 Classes,
 Activex,
 Variants,
 ComObj,
 uWmiDelphiClass;

type
{$IFDEF FPC}
 Cardinal=Longint;
 Int64=Integer;
 Word=Longint;
{$ENDIF}
{$IFNDEF FPC}
 {$IF CompilerVersion <= 15}
 {$DEFINE OLD_DELPHI}
 {$IFEND}
{$ENDIF}
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$REGION 'Documentation'}{$ENDIF}
 /// <summary>
 /// The Win32_Share class represents a shared resource on a Win32 system. This may be a disk drive, printer, interprocess communication, or other shareable device.
 /// Example: C:\PUBLIC.
 /// </summary>
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$ENDREGION}{$ENDIF}
 TWin32_Share=class(TWmiClass)
 private
 FAccessMask                         : Cardinal;
 FAllowMaximum                       : Boolean;
 FCaption                            : String;
 FDescription                        : String;
 FInstallDate                        : TDateTime;
 FMaximumAllowed                     : Cardinal;
 FName                               : String;
 FPath                               : String;
 FStatus                             : String;
 FType                               : Cardinal;
 public
 constructor Create(LoadWmiData : boolean=True); overload;
 destructor Destroy;Override;
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$REGION 'Documentation'}{$ENDIF}
 /// <summary>
 /// This property has been deprecated in favour of the GetAccessMask method of this
 /// class due to the expense of calling GetEffectiveRightsFromAcl. The value will
 /// be set to NULL
 /// </summary>
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$ENDREGION}{$ENDIF}
 property AccessMask : Cardinal read FAccessMask;
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$REGION 'Documentation'}{$ENDIF}
 /// <summary>
 /// The AllowMaximum property indicates whether the number of concurrent users for this resource has been limited.
 /// Values: TRUE or FALSE. A value of TRUE indicates the number of concurrent users of this resource has not been limited and the value in the MaximumAllowed property is ignored.
 /// </summary>
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$ENDREGION}{$ENDIF}
 property AllowMaximum : Boolean read FAllowMaximum;
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$REGION 'Documentation'}{$ENDIF}
 /// <summary>
 /// The Caption property is a short textual description (one-line string) of the
 /// object.
 /// </summary>
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$ENDREGION}{$ENDIF}
 property Caption : String read FCaption;
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$REGION 'Documentation'}{$ENDIF}
 /// <summary>
 /// The Description property provides a textual description of the object.
 /// </summary>
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$ENDREGION}{$ENDIF}
 property Description : String read FDescription;
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$REGION 'Documentation'}{$ENDIF}
 /// <summary>
 /// The InstallDate property is datetime value indicating when the object was
 /// installed. A lack of a value does not indicate that the object is not installed.
 /// </summary>
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$ENDREGION}{$ENDIF}
 property InstallDate : TDateTime read FInstallDate;
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$REGION 'Documentation'}{$ENDIF}
 /// <summary>
 /// The MaximumAllowed property indicates the limit on the maximum number of users allowed to use this resource concurrently. The value is only valid if the AllowMaximum member set to FALSE
 /// Example: 10.
 /// </summary>
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$ENDREGION}{$ENDIF}
 property MaximumAllowed : Cardinal read FMaximumAllowed;
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$REGION 'Documentation'}{$ENDIF}
 /// <summary>
 /// The Name property indicates the alias given to a path set up as a share on a  Win32 system.
 /// Example: public.
 /// </summary>
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$ENDREGION}{$ENDIF}
 property Name : String read FName;
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$REGION 'Documentation'}{$ENDIF}
 /// <summary>
 /// The Path property indicates the local path of the Win32 share.
 /// Example: C:\Program Files
 /// </summary>
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$ENDREGION}{$ENDIF}
 property Path : String read FPath;
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$REGION 'Documentation'}{$ENDIF}
 /// <summary>
 /// The Status property is a string indicating the current status of the object.
 /// Various operational and non-operational statuses can be defined. Operational
 /// statuses are "OK", "Degraded" and "Pred Fail". "Pred Fail" indicates that an
 /// element may be functioning properly but predicting a failure in the near
 /// future. An example is a SMART-enabled hard drive. Non-operational statuses can
 /// also be specified. These are "Error", "Starting", "Stopping" and "Service". The
 /// latter, "Service", could apply during mirror-resilvering of a disk, reload of a
 /// user permissions list, or other administrative work. Not all such work is on-
 /// line, yet the managed element is neither "OK" nor in one of the other states.
 /// </summary>
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$ENDREGION}{$ENDIF}
 property Status : String read FStatus;
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$REGION 'Documentation'}{$ENDIF}
 /// <summary>
 /// The Type property specifies the type of resource being shared. Types include
 /// disk drives, print queues, interprocess communications (IPC), and general
 /// devices.
 /// </summary>
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$ENDREGION}{$ENDIF}
 property {$IFDEF OLD_DELPHI}_Type{$ELSE}&Type{$ENDIF} : Cardinal read FType;
 function Create(const Access : OleVariant;const Description : String;const MaximumAllowed : Cardinal;const Name : String;const Password : String;const Path : String;const {$IFDEF OLD_DELPHI}_Type{$ELSE}&Type{$ENDIF} : Cardinal): Integer;overload;
 function SetShareInfo(const Access : OleVariant;const Description : String;const MaximumAllowed : Cardinal): Integer;
 function GetAccessMask: Integer;
 function Delete: Integer;
 procedure SetCollectionIndex(Index : Integer); override;
 end;

 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$REGION 'Documentation'}{$ENDIF}
 /// <summary>
 /// Return the description for the value of the property TWin32_Share.Type
 /// </summary>
 {$IFDEF UNDEF}{$ENDREGION}{$ENDIF}
 function GetTypeAsString(const APropValue:Cardinal) : string;

implementation

function GetTypeAsString(const APropValue:Cardinal) : string;
begin
Result:='';
 case APropValue of
 0 : Result:='Disk Drive';
 1 : Result:='Print Queue';
 2 : Result:='Device';
 3 : Result:='IPC';
 2147483648 : Result:='Disk Drive Admin';
 2147483649 : Result:='Print Queue Admin';
 2147483650 : Result:='Device Admin';
 2147483651 : Result:='IPC Admin';
 end;
end;

{TWin32_Share}

constructor TWin32_Share.Create(LoadWmiData : boolean=True);
begin
 inherited Create(LoadWmiData,'root\CIMV2','Win32_Share');
end;

destructor TWin32_Share.Destroy;
begin
 inherited;
end;

procedure TWin32_Share.SetCollectionIndex(Index : Integer);
begin
 if (Index>=0) and (Index<=FWmiCollection.Count-1) and (FWmiCollectionIndex<>Index) then
 begin
 FWmiCollectionIndex:=Index;
 FAccessMask          := VarCardinalNull(inherited Value['AccessMask']);
 FAllowMaximum        := VarBoolNull(inherited Value['AllowMaximum']);
 FCaption             := VarStrNull(inherited Value['Caption']);
 FDescription         := VarStrNull(inherited Value['Description']);
 FInstallDate         := VarDateTimeNull(inherited Value['InstallDate']);
 FMaximumAllowed      := VarCardinalNull(inherited Value['MaximumAllowed']);
 FName                := VarStrNull(inherited Value['Name']);
 FPath                := VarStrNull(inherited Value['Path']);
 FStatus              := VarStrNull(inherited Value['Status']);
 FType                := VarCardinalNull(inherited Value['Type']);
 end;
end;

//static, OutParams=1, InParams>0
function TWin32_Share.Create(const Access : OleVariant;const Description : String;const MaximumAllowed : Cardinal;const Name : String;const Password : String;const Path : String;const {$IFDEF OLD_DELPHI}_Type{$ELSE}&Type{$ENDIF} : Cardinal): Integer;
var
 objInParams                : OleVariant;
 objOutParams               : OleVariant;
begin
 objInParams                 := GetInstanceOf.Methods_.Item('Create').InParameters.SpawnInstance_();
 objInParams.Properties_.Item('Access').Value  := Access;
 objInParams.Properties_.Item('Description').Value  := Description;
 objInParams.Properties_.Item('MaximumAllowed').Value  := MaximumAllowed;
 objInParams.Properties_.Item('Name').Value  := Name;
 objInParams.Properties_.Item('Password').Value  := Password;
 objInParams.Properties_.Item('Path').Value  := Path;
 objInParams.Properties_.Item('Type').Value  := {$IFDEF OLD_DELPHI}_Type{$ELSE}&Type{$ENDIF};
 objOutParams                := WMIService.ExecMethod(WmiClass, 'Create', objInParams, 0, GetNullValue);
 Result := VarIntegerNull(objOutParams.ReturnValue);
end;

//not static, OutParams=1, InParams>0
function TWin32_Share.SetShareInfo(const Access : OleVariant;const Description : String;const MaximumAllowed : Cardinal): Integer;
var
 ReturnValue : OleVariant;
begin
 ReturnValue := GetInstanceOf.SetShareInfo(Access,Description,MaximumAllowed);
 Result      := VarIntegerNull(ReturnValue);
end;

//not static, OutParams=1, InParams=0
function TWin32_Share.GetAccessMask: integer;
var
 ReturnValue : OleVariant;
begin
 ReturnValue := GetInstanceOf.GetAccessMask;
 Result      := VarIntegerNull(ReturnValue);
end;

//not static, OutParams=1, InParams=0
function TWin32_Share.Delete: integer;
var
 ReturnValue : OleVariant;
begin
 ReturnValue := GetInstanceOf.Delete;
 Result      := VarIntegerNull(ReturnValue);
end;
end.

as you can see the generated code is a full documented class compatible with the delphi help insight feature, available since Delphi 2005.

check this screen-shot which show the help insight for the Getowner method of the Win32_Process class.

This tool not only facilitate the access to the wmi, also give you information about every single WMI class, method and property.

here some features of the application

  • The code generated is compatible Delphi 7, 2005, BDS/Turbo 2006 and RAD Studio 2007, 2009, 2010, XE and the Free Pascal Compiler 2.2.4 (win32)
  • Create full documented classes compatible with the help insight feature, available since Delphi 2005.
    Note : the language of the description of the methods, parameters and properties depends on of the language of the windows where you generate the units.
  • Create additional helper functions to retrieve the description of the returned values for the properties and functions.
  • Support access to the WMI of the remote computers.

Now see this sample application which uses a class generated by the tool to access the BIOS information of a Remote PC.

program TestRemote;

{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}

uses
  SysUtils,
  uWmiDelphiClass in '..\..\uWmiDelphiClass.pas', //the base class must be always included
  uWin32_BIOS in '..\..\root_CIMV2\uWin32_BIOS.pas'; //the class with the BIOs information

var
  RemoteBiosInfo : TWin32_BIOS;
  i              : integer;
begin
   try
     RemoteBiosInfo:=TWin32_BIOS.Create(False); //Create a instance of the TWin32_BIOS, the false value indicate which not load the Values when calls the constructor.
     try

       RemoteBiosInfo.WmiServer:='192.168.217.128'; //the remote pc name or IP
       RemoteBiosInfo.WmiUser  :='Administrator'; //the user used to establish the connection
       RemoteBiosInfo.WmiPass  :='password'; //the password
       RemoteBiosInfo.LoadWmiData; //now load the the data of the class

       if RemoteBiosInfo.WmiConnected then  //check if the connection was established
       begin
         Writeln('Serial Number       '+RemoteBiosInfo.SerialNumber);
         Writeln('BuildNumber         '+RemoteBiosInfo.BuildNumber);
         if RemoteBiosInfo.BIOSVersion.Count>0 then
         Writeln('Version             '+RemoteBiosInfo.BIOSVersion[0]);
         Writeln('Identification Code '+RemoteBiosInfo.IdentificationCode);
         Writeln('Manufacturer        '+RemoteBiosInfo.Manufacturer);
         Writeln('SoftwareElementID   '+RemoteBiosInfo.SoftwareElementID);
         Writeln('Release Date        '+DateToStr(RemoteBiosInfo.ReleaseDate));
         Writeln('Install Date        '+DateToStr(RemoteBiosInfo.InstallDate));
         Writeln('Target S.O          '+GetTargetOperatingSystemAsString(RemoteBiosInfo.TargetOperatingSystem));
         Writeln('Soft. element state '+GetSoftwareElementStateAsString(RemoteBiosInfo.SoftwareElementState));

         Writeln('');
         Writeln('Bios Characteristics');
         Writeln('--------------------');
         for i:=Low(RemoteBiosInfo.BiosCharacteristics)  to High(RemoteBiosInfo.BiosCharacteristics) do
          Writeln(GetBiosCharacteristicsAsString(RemoteBiosInfo.BiosCharacteristics[i]));
       end
       else
       Writeln('No connected');
     finally
      RemoteBiosInfo.Free;
     end;
   except
    on E:Exception do
     Writeln(E.Classname, ': ', E.Message);
   end;

 Readln;
end.

You can found more information about the internals, the full source code, demos and samples of this tool in the google code project page.

See you, and happy new year.


3 Comments

Detecting the language from a text using the Google translate API v1

UPDATE

The Google Translate API has been officially deprecated  an alternative  is the Microsoft Translator V2, check this article for more details.

 

In this past post we use the Google translate API v2 to translate from an language to another. today will show how use the current version of this API (v1) which include a nice functionality to detect the language from a given text.

This API can be accessed via JavaScript  in a web page or using a HTTP request. in the next sample i will use the second option.

Before to continue you must aware of this warning of Google.

Note: The Google Translate API must be used for user-generated translations. Automated or batched queries of any kind are strictly prohibited.

Here you can find the Terms of Service of this API.

The next code is for educational purposes only.

To detect the language from a text you must make  a request to his URI

https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/language/detect?v=1.0&q=Hello+World

As you can see the only required parameter is the encoded text to detect.

the  JSON response to this request will be something like this

{ "responseData" : { "confidence" : 0.11489271400000001,
      "isReliable" : false,
      "language" : "en"
    },
  "responseDetails" : null,
  "responseStatus" : 200
}

the responseStatus contain the result of the operation, the 200 indicate which the language from text was successfully detected.

So now we need to define a few types, functions and constants to make the work more easy.

type
  //the supported languages
  TGoogleLanguages=
  (Autodetect,Afrikaans,Albanian,Arabic,Basque,Belarusian,Bulgarian,Catalan,Chinese,Chinese_Traditional,
  Croatian,Czech,Danish,Dutch,English,Estonian,Filipino,Finnish,French,Galician,German,Greek,
  Haitian_Creole,Hebrew,Hindi,Hungarian,Icelandic,Indonesian,Irish,Italian,Japanese,Latvian,
  Lithuanian,Macedonian,Malay,Maltese,Norwegian,Persian,Polish,Portuguese,Romanian,Russian,
  Serbian,Slovak,Slovenian,Spanish,Swahili,Swedish,Thai,Turkish,Ukrainian,Vietnamese,Welsh,Yiddish,Unknow);

  //the string representation for the enumerated types
  const
  GoogleLanguagesStr : array[TGoogleLanguages] of string =
  ('Autodetect','Afrikaans','Albanian','Arabic','Basque','Belarusian','Bulgarian','Catalan','Chinese','Chinese_Traditional',
  'Croatian','Czech','Danish','Dutch','English','Estonian','Filipino','Finnish','French','Galician','German','Greek',
  'Haitian_Creole','Hebrew','Hindi','Hungarian','Icelandic','Indonesian','Irish','Italian','Japanese','Latvian',
  'Lithuanian','Macedonian','Malay','Maltese','Norwegian','Persian','Polish','Portuguese','Romanian','Russian',
  'Serbian','Slovak','Slovenian','Spanish','Swahili','Swedish','Thai','Turkish','Ukrainian','Vietnamese','Welsh','Yiddish','Unknow');

  //The languages code to be used in HTTP request
  GoogleLanguagesArr : array[TGoogleLanguages] of string =
  ( 'Autodetect','af','sq','ar','eu','be','bg','ca','zh-CN','zh-TW','hr','cs','da','nl','en','et','tl','fi','fr','gl',
    'de','el','ht','iw','hi','hu','is','id','ga','it','ja','lv','lt','mk','ms','mt','no','fa','pl','pt',
    'ro','ru','sr','sk','sl','es','sw','sv','th','tr','uk','vi','cy','yi','Unknow');

  //URI to translate a text using the V1 from the API
  GoogleTranslateUrl='https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/language/translate?v=1.0&q=%s&langpair=%s';
  //URI to detect the language from a text
  GoogleLngDetectUrl='https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/language/detect?v=1.0&q=%s';

//return a stream containing the HTTP response InternetOpen
procedure WinInet_HttpGet(const Url: string;Stream:TStream);overload;
const
BuffSize = 1024*1024;
var
  hInter   : HINTERNET;
  UrlHandle: HINTERNET;
  BytesRead: DWORD;
  Buffer   : Pointer;
begin
  hInter := InternetOpen('', INTERNET_OPEN_TYPE_PRECONFIG, nil, nil, 0);
  if Assigned(hInter) then
  begin
    Stream.Seek(0,0);
    GetMem(Buffer,BuffSize);
    try
        UrlHandle := InternetOpenUrl(hInter, PChar(Url), nil, 0, INTERNET_FLAG_RELOAD, 0);
        if Assigned(UrlHandle) then
        begin
          repeat
            InternetReadFile(UrlHandle, Buffer, BuffSize, BytesRead);
            if BytesRead>0 then
             Stream.WriteBuffer(Buffer^,BytesRead);
          until BytesRead = 0;
          InternetCloseHandle(UrlHandle);
        end;
    finally
      FreeMem(Buffer);
    end;
    InternetCloseHandle(hInter);
  end
end;

//return a string containing the HTTP response.
function WinInet_HttpGet(const Url: string): string;overload;
Var
  StringStream : TStringStream;
begin
  Result:='';
    StringStream:=TStringStream.Create('',TEncoding.UTF8);
    try
        WinInet_HttpGet(Url,StringStream);
        if StringStream.Size>0 then
        begin
          StringStream.Seek(0,0);
          Result:=StringStream.ReadString(StringStream.Size);
        end;
    finally
      StringStream.Free;
    end;
end;

And now to process the response using the DBXJSON unit

function DetectLanguage_DBXJSON(const Text:string):TGoogleLanguages;
var
  EncodedRequest: string;
  json          : TJSONObject;
  jPair         : TJSONPair;
  jValue        : TJSONValue;
  Response      : string;
  Lng           : TGoogleLanguages;
  LngStr        : string;
begin
  Result:=Unknow;
  EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleLngDetectUrl,[HTTPEncode(Text)]);
  Response:=WinInet_HttpGet(EncodedRequest);

  if Response<>'' then
  begin
      json    := TJSONObject.ParseJSONValue(TEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(Response),0) as TJSONObject;
    try
      jPair   := json.Get(2);//get the responseStatus
      if jPair.JsonValue.ToString<>'200' then  //200 is all ok
        Result := Unknow
      else
      begin
        jPair  := json.Get(0);
        jValue := TJSONObject(jPair.JsonValue).Get(0).JsonValue;
        LngStr := jValue.Value;
        for lng:=Low(TGoogleLanguages) to High(TGoogleLanguages)  do
        if GoogleLanguagesArr[Lng]=LngStr then
        begin
         Result:=lng;
         exit;
        end;
      end;
    finally
       json.Free;
    end;
  end;
end;

Another alternative using the JSON superobject library

function DetectLanguage_JSONsuperobject(const Text:string):TGoogleLanguages;
var
  EncodedRequest: string;
  Response      : string;
  Lng           : TGoogleLanguages;
  LngStr        : string;
begin
  Result:=Unknow;
  EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleLngDetectUrl,[HTTPEncode(Text)]);
  Response:=WinInet_HttpGet(EncodedRequest);
  if Response<>'' then
  begin
    if SO(Response)['responseStatus'].AsInteger<>200 then   //if responseStatus<>200 then exist a error in the response
      Result:=Unknow
    else
    begin
      LngStr:=SO(Response)['responseData.language'].AsString;
      for lng:=Low(TGoogleLanguages) to High(TGoogleLanguages)  do
      if GoogleLanguagesArr[Lng]=LngStr then
      begin
       Result:=lng;
       exit;
      end;
    end;
  end;
end;

and finally a option without JSON

function DetectLanguage_JSONLess(const Text:string):TGoogleLanguages;
const
  TagErr='{"responseData": null,';
  TagIOk='{"responseData": {"language":"';
  TagFOk='","isReliable":';
var
  EncodedRequest: string;
  Response      : string;
  Lng           : TGoogleLanguages;
  LngStr        : string;
begin
  Result:=Unknow;
  EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleLngDetectUrl,[HTTPEncode(Text)]);
  Response:=WinInet_HttpGet(EncodedRequest);

  if Response<>'' then
  begin
    if StartsStr(TagErr,(Response)) then  //Response  Error
    begin
      Result:=Unknow
    end
    else
    begin  //Response Ok
      LngStr:=StringReplace(Response,TagIOk,'',[rfReplaceAll]);
      LngStr:=Copy(LngStr,1,Pos(TagFOk,LngStr)-1);
        for lng:=Low(TGoogleLanguages) to High(TGoogleLanguages)  do
        if GoogleLanguagesArr[Lng]=LngStr then
        begin
         Result:=lng;
         exit;
        end;
    end;
  end;
end;

To finish here i leave the full source code from a console application which show all the alternatives to decode the JSON response and as extra include the routine to translate a text using the Google translate API v1.

program GoogleAPITranslateV1;

{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}
{$DEFINE USE_SUPER_OBJECT}
{$DEFINE USE_DBXJSON}
{$DEFINE USE_JSONLess}

uses
  Windows
  ,Classes
  ,WinInet
  ,Activex
  ,HTTPApp
  ,SysUtils
  {$IFDEF USE_JSONLess}
  ,StrUtils
  {$ENDIF}
  {$IFDEF USE_SUPER_OBJECT}
  ,superobject
  {$ENDIF}
  {$IFDEF USE_DBXJSON}
  ,DBXJSON
  {$ENDIF}
  ;

type
  TGoogleLanguages=
  (Autodetect,Afrikaans,Albanian,Arabic,Basque,Belarusian,Bulgarian,Catalan,Chinese,Chinese_Traditional,
  Croatian,Czech,Danish,Dutch,English,Estonian,Filipino,Finnish,French,Galician,German,Greek,
  Haitian_Creole,Hebrew,Hindi,Hungarian,Icelandic,Indonesian,Irish,Italian,Japanese,Latvian,
  Lithuanian,Macedonian,Malay,Maltese,Norwegian,Persian,Polish,Portuguese,Romanian,Russian,
  Serbian,Slovak,Slovenian,Spanish,Swahili,Swedish,Thai,Turkish,Ukrainian,Vietnamese,Welsh,Yiddish,Unknow);

  const
  GoogleLanguagesStr : array[TGoogleLanguages] of string =
  ('Autodetect','Afrikaans','Albanian','Arabic','Basque','Belarusian','Bulgarian','Catalan','Chinese','Chinese_Traditional',
  'Croatian','Czech','Danish','Dutch','English','Estonian','Filipino','Finnish','French','Galician','German','Greek',
  'Haitian_Creole','Hebrew','Hindi','Hungarian','Icelandic','Indonesian','Irish','Italian','Japanese','Latvian',
  'Lithuanian','Macedonian','Malay','Maltese','Norwegian','Persian','Polish','Portuguese','Romanian','Russian',
  'Serbian','Slovak','Slovenian','Spanish','Swahili','Swedish','Thai','Turkish','Ukrainian','Vietnamese','Welsh','Yiddish','Unknow');

  GoogleLanguagesArr : array[TGoogleLanguages] of string =
  ( 'Autodetect','af','sq','ar','eu','be','bg','ca','zh-CN','zh-TW','hr','cs','da','nl','en','et','tl','fi','fr','gl',
    'de','el','ht','iw','hi','hu','is','id','ga','it','ja','lv','lt','mk','ms','mt','no','fa','pl','pt',
    'ro','ru','sr','sk','sl','es','sw','sv','th','tr','uk','vi','cy','yi','Unknow');

  GoogleTranslateUrl='https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/language/translate?v=1.0&q=%s&langpair=%s';
  //http://code.google.com/apis/language/translate/v1/using_rest_translate.html
  GoogleLngDetectUrl='https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/services/language/detect?v=1.0&q=%s';

procedure WinInet_HttpGet(const Url: string;Stream:TStream);overload;
const
BuffSize = 1024*1024;
var
  hInter   : HINTERNET;
  UrlHandle: HINTERNET;
  BytesRead: DWORD;
  Buffer   : Pointer;
begin
  hInter := InternetOpen('Mozilla/3.0', INTERNET_OPEN_TYPE_PRECONFIG, nil, nil, 0);
  if Assigned(hInter) then
  begin
    Stream.Seek(0,0);
    GetMem(Buffer,BuffSize);
    try
        UrlHandle := InternetOpenUrl(hInter, PChar(Url), nil, 0, INTERNET_FLAG_RELOAD, 0);
        if Assigned(UrlHandle) then
        begin
          repeat
            InternetReadFile(UrlHandle, Buffer, BuffSize, BytesRead);
            if BytesRead>0 then
             Stream.WriteBuffer(Buffer^,BytesRead);
          until BytesRead = 0;
          InternetCloseHandle(UrlHandle);
        end;
    finally
      FreeMem(Buffer);
    end;
    InternetCloseHandle(hInter);
  end
end;

function WinInet_HttpGet(const Url: string): string;overload;
Var
  StringStream : TStringStream;
begin
  Result:='';
    StringStream:=TStringStream.Create('',TEncoding.UTF8);
    try
        WinInet_HttpGet(Url,StringStream);
        if StringStream.Size>0 then
        begin
          StringStream.Seek(0,0);
          Result:=StringStream.ReadString(StringStream.Size);
        end;
    finally
      StringStream.Free;
    end;
end;

{$IFDEF USE_SUPER_OBJECT}
function DetectLanguage_JSONsuperobject(const Text:string):TGoogleLanguages;
var
  EncodedRequest: string;
  Response      : string;
  Lng           : TGoogleLanguages;
  LngStr        : string;
begin
  Result:=Unknow;
  EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleLngDetectUrl,[HTTPEncode(Text)]);
  Response:=WinInet_HttpGet(EncodedRequest);
  if Response<>'' then
  begin
    if SO(Response)['responseStatus'].AsInteger<>200 then   //if responseStatus<>200 then exist a error in the response
      Result:=Unknow
    else
    begin
      LngStr:=SO(Response)['responseData.language'].AsString;
      for lng:=Low(TGoogleLanguages) to High(TGoogleLanguages)  do
      if GoogleLanguagesArr[Lng]=LngStr then
      begin
       Result:=lng;
       exit;
      end;
    end;
  end;
end;

function Translate_JSONsuperobject(const Text:string;Source,Dest:TGoogleLanguages):string;
var
  EncodedRequest: string;
  Response      : string;
begin
  Result:='';
  if Source=Autodetect then
   EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleTranslateUrl,[HTTPEncode(Text),'%7C'+GoogleLanguagesArr[Dest]])
  else
   EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleTranslateUrl,[HTTPEncode(Text),GoogleLanguagesArr[Source]+'%7C'+GoogleLanguagesArr[Dest]]);

  Response:=WinInet_HttpGet(EncodedRequest);
  if Response<>'' then
  begin
    if SO(Response)['responseData'].AsObject=nil then   //if the first element is null then ocurrs an error
      Result:=Format('Error Code %d %s',[SO(Response)['responseStatus'].AsInteger,SO(Response)['responseDetails'].AsString])
    else
      Result:=SO(Response)['responseData.translatedText'].AsString;
  end;
end;
{$ENDIF}

{$IFDEF USE_DBXJSON}
function DetectLanguage_DBXJSON(const Text:string):TGoogleLanguages;
var
  EncodedRequest: string;
  json          : TJSONObject;
  jPair         : TJSONPair;
  jValue        : TJSONValue;
  Response      : string;
  Lng           : TGoogleLanguages;
  LngStr        : string;
begin
  Result:=Unknow;
  EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleLngDetectUrl,[HTTPEncode(Text)]);
  Response:=WinInet_HttpGet(EncodedRequest);
  if Response<>'' then
  begin
      json    := TJSONObject.ParseJSONValue(TEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(Response),0) as TJSONObject;
    try
      jPair   := json.Get(2);//get the responseStatus
      if jPair.JsonValue.ToString<>'200' then  //200 is all ok
        Result := Unknow
      else
      begin
        jPair  := json.Get(0);
        jValue := TJSONObject(jPair.JsonValue).Get(0).JsonValue;
        LngStr := jValue.Value;
        for lng:=Low(TGoogleLanguages) to High(TGoogleLanguages)  do
        if GoogleLanguagesArr[Lng]=LngStr then
        begin
         Result:=lng;
         exit;
        end;
      end;
    finally
       json.Free;
    end;
  end;
end;

function Translate_DBXJSON(const Text:string;Source,Dest:TGoogleLanguages):string;
var
  EncodedRequest: string;
  json          : TJSONObject;
  jPair         : TJSONPair;
  jValue        : TJSONValue;
  Response      : string;
begin
  Result:='';
  if Source=Autodetect then
   EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleTranslateUrl,[HTTPEncode(Text),'%7C'+GoogleLanguagesArr[Dest]])
  else
   EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleTranslateUrl,[HTTPEncode(Text),GoogleLanguagesArr[Source]+'%7C'+GoogleLanguagesArr[Dest]]);

  Response:=WinInet_HttpGet(EncodedRequest);
  if Response<>'' then
  begin
      json    := TJSONObject.ParseJSONValue(TEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(Response),0) as TJSONObject;
    try
      jPair   := json.Get(2);//get the responseStatus
      if jPair.JsonValue.ToString<>'200' then  //200 is all ok
        //{"responseData": null, "responseDetails": "invalid translation language pair", "responseStatus": 400}
        Result := Format('Error Code %s message %s',[json.Get(2).JsonValue.ToString,json.Get(1).JsonValue.ToString])
      else
      begin
        jPair  := json.Get(0);
        jValue := TJSONObject(jPair.JsonValue).Get(0).JsonValue;
        Result := jValue.ToString;
      end;
    finally
       json.Free;
    end;
      Result:=HTMLDecode(Result);
  end;
end;
{$ENDIF}

{$IFDEF USE_JSONLess}
function DetectLanguage_JSONLess(const Text:string):TGoogleLanguages;
const
  TagErr='{"responseData": null,';
  TagIOk='{"responseData": {"language":"';
  TagFOk='","isReliable":';
var
  EncodedRequest: string;
  Response      : string;
  Lng           : TGoogleLanguages;
  LngStr        : string;
begin
  Result:=Unknow;
  EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleLngDetectUrl,[HTTPEncode(Text)]);
  Response:=WinInet_HttpGet(EncodedRequest); //{"responseData": {"language":"en","isReliable":false,"confidence":0.114892714},"responseDetails": null, "responseStatus": 200}

  if Response<>'' then
  begin
    if StartsStr(TagErr,(Response)) then  //Response  Error
    begin
      Result:=Unknow
    end
    else
    begin  //Response Ok
      LngStr:=StringReplace(Response,TagIOk,'',[rfReplaceAll]);
      LngStr:=Copy(LngStr,1,Pos(TagFOk,LngStr)-1);
        for lng:=Low(TGoogleLanguages) to High(TGoogleLanguages)  do
        if GoogleLanguagesArr[Lng]=LngStr then
        begin
         Result:=lng;
         exit;
        end;
    end;
  end;
end;

function Translate_JSONLess(const Text:string;Source,Dest:TGoogleLanguages):string;
const
  TagErr='{"responseData": null,';

  TagIOk='{"responseData": {"translatedText":"';
  TagAut=',"detectedSourceLanguage":"';

  TagFOk='"}, "responseDetails":';
var
  EncodedRequest: string;
  Response      : string;
begin
  Result:='';
  if Source=Autodetect then
   EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleTranslateUrl,[HTTPEncode(Text),'%7C'+GoogleLanguagesArr[Dest]])
  else
   EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleTranslateUrl,[HTTPEncode(Text),GoogleLanguagesArr[Source]+'%7C'+GoogleLanguagesArr[Dest]]);

  Response:=WinInet_HttpGet(EncodedRequest);
  if Response<>'' then
  begin
    if StartsStr(TagErr,(Response)) then  //Response  Error
    begin
      Result:='Error'
    end
    else
    begin  //Response Ok
      if Source=Autodetect then
      begin
        Result:=StringReplace(Response,TagIOk,'',[rfReplaceAll]);
        Result:=Copy(Result,1,Pos(TagAut,Result)-2);
      end
      else
      begin
        Result:=StringReplace(Response,TagIOk,'',[rfReplaceAll]);
        Result:=Copy(Result,1,Pos(TagFOk,Result)-1);
      end;
    end;

    Result:=HTMLDecode(Result);
  end;
end;
{$ENDIF}

Const
 Text   ='Hello World';
 TextEn ='Hello World';
 TextEs ='Hola Mundo';
Var
 TranslatedText : string;
begin
  try
    CoInitialize(nil);
    try
       {$IFDEF USE_JSONLess}
       Writeln('Without JSON (very ugly)');
       Writeln('');
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONLess(Text,Autodetect,Spanish);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONLess(Text,English,Chinese_Traditional);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONLess(Text,English,German);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONLess(Text,English,Danish);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONLess(Text,English,Portuguese);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       Writeln('');

       Writeln('Detecting language Without JSON');
       Writeln('');
       Writeln(Format('language detected for "%s"  : %s',[TextEn,GoogleLanguagesStr[DetectLanguage_JSONLess(TextEn)]]));
       Writeln(Format('language detected for "%s"  : %s',[TextEs,GoogleLanguagesStr[DetectLanguage_JSONLess(TextEs)]]));
       {$ENDIF}

       {$IFDEF USE_SUPER_OBJECT}
       Writeln('Using the superobject library');
       Writeln('');
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONsuperobject(Text,Autodetect,Spanish);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONsuperobject(Text,English,Chinese_Traditional);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONsuperobject(Text,English,German);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONsuperobject(Text,English,Danish);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONsuperobject(Text,English,Portuguese);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       Writeln('');

       Writeln('Detecting language using the superobject library');
       Writeln('');
       Writeln(Format('language detected for "%s"  : %s',[TextEn,GoogleLanguagesStr[DetectLanguage_JSONsuperobject(TextEn)]]));
       Writeln(Format('language detected for "%s"  : %s',[TextEs,GoogleLanguagesStr[DetectLanguage_JSONsuperobject(TextEs)]]));
       {$ENDIF}

       {$IFDEF USE_DBXJSON}
       Writeln('Using the DBXJSON unit');
       Writeln('');
       TranslatedText:=Translate_DBXJSON(Text,Autodetect,Spanish);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_DBXJSON(Text,English,Chinese_Traditional);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_DBXJSON(Text,English,German);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_DBXJSON(Text,English,Danish);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_DBXJSON(Text,English,Portuguese);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       Writeln('');

       Writeln('Detecting language using the DBXJSON unit');
       Writeln('');
       Writeln(Format('language detected for "%s"  : %s',[TextEn,GoogleLanguagesStr[DetectLanguage_DBXJSON(TextEn)]]));
       Writeln(Format('language detected for "%s"  : %s',[TextEs,GoogleLanguagesStr[DetectLanguage_DBXJSON(TextEs)]]));
       {$ENDIF}

    finally
     CoUninitialize;
    end;
  except
    on E: Exception do
      Writeln(E.ClassName, ': ', E.Message);
  end;
  Readln;
end.


25 Comments

Generating Qr Codes with Delphi

 The QR Codes are a  special kind of images that used to represent two-dimensional barcodes. They are also known as hardlinks or physical world hyperlinks.

The QR Codes can store up to 4,296 alphanumeric characters of arbitrary text. The  QR codes can be read by an optical device with the appropriate software. Such devices range from dedicated QR code readers to mobile phones.

On this post I will show you how using the Google Chart Tools / Image Charts (aka Chart API) you can easily generate QR codes.

Using this API is very  straightforward, all you need to do is to generate a QR Code is make a Get request to this URI

http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chs=200x200&cht=qr&chld=M&chl=Go+Delphi+Go

And how response you will get a png image (you can change the output format to gif adding the chof parameter to the URI  like so : chof=gif).

On the Google Chart Documentation you can find more info about the parameters to generate a QR Code.

Note : If you want encode more of 2000 chars do you need make a post request (this up to you).

Finally this a sample Delphi source to generate a QR Code.


uses
 PngImage,
 HTTPApp,
 WinInet;

type
TQrImage_ErrCorrLevel=(L,M,Q,H);

const
UrlGoogleQrCode='http://chart.apis.google.com/chart?chs=%dx%d&cht=qr&chld=%s&chl=%s';
QrImgCorrStr   : array [TQrImage_ErrCorrLevel] of string=('L','M','Q','H');

procedure WinInet_HttpGet(const Url: string;Stream:TStream);
const
BuffSize = 1024*1024;
var
  hInter   : HINTERNET;
  UrlHandle: HINTERNET;
  BytesRead: DWORD;
  Buffer   : Pointer;
begin
  hInter := InternetOpen('', INTERNET_OPEN_TYPE_PRECONFIG, nil, nil, 0);
  if Assigned(hInter) then
  begin
    Stream.Seek(0,0);
    GetMem(Buffer,BuffSize);
    try
        UrlHandle := InternetOpenUrl(hInter, PChar(Url), nil, 0, INTERNET_FLAG_RELOAD, 0);
        if Assigned(UrlHandle) then
        begin
          repeat
            InternetReadFile(UrlHandle, Buffer, BuffSize, BytesRead);
            if BytesRead>0 then
             Stream.WriteBuffer(Buffer^,BytesRead);
          until BytesRead = 0;
          InternetCloseHandle(UrlHandle);
        end;
    finally
      FreeMem(Buffer);
    end;
    InternetCloseHandle(hInter);
  end
end;

//this function return a Stream (PngImage inside) with a Qr code.
procedure GetQrCode(Width,Height:Word;Correction_Level:TQrImage_ErrCorrLevel;const Data:string;StreamImage : TMemoryStream);
Var
 EncodedURL  : string;
begin
  EncodedURL:=Format(UrlGoogleQrCode,[Width,Height,QrImgCorrStr[Correction_Level],HTTPEncode(Data)]);
  WinInet_HttpGet(EncodedURL,StreamImage);
end;

Check the source code of the application on Github


19 Comments

Using the Google Translate API V2 (Labs) from Delphi

UPDATE

The Google Translate API has been officially deprecated  an alternative  is the Microsoft Translator V2, check this article for more details.

 

In this post i will show you how work with the Google Translate API V2 (Labs),  this API lets you automatically translates text from one language to another.

Disclaimer

  • This version of the Google Translate API is in Labs, and its features might change unexpectedly until it graduates.
  • The Google Translate API requires the use of an API key, which you can get from the Google APIs console
  • Before to use this API check the Google Translate API Terms of Use.

To use the Google Translate API you must send a HTTP GET request to its URI.

The URI for a request has the following format:

https://www.googleapis.com/language/translate/v2?parameters

Example to making a request to translate the Hello World text from English (en) to Spanish (es) the URI must be constructed in this way

https://www.googleapis.com/language/translate/v2?key=INSERT-YOUR-KEY&source=en&target=es&q=Hello%20world

The response in JSON format will be

{"data":{"translations":[{"translatedText":"Hola Mundo"}]}}

To activate the auto-detection of the source language you must avoid the use of the source keyword

https://www.googleapis.com/language/translate/v2?key=INSERT-YOUR-KEY&target=es&q=Hello%20world

and the JSON response in this case will be

{"data":{"translations":[{"translatedText":"Hola a todos","detectedSourceLanguage":"en"}]}

if you pass incorrect parameters the response will look like this

{"error":{"errors":[{"domain":"global","reason":"invalid","message":"Invalid Value"}],"code":400,"message":"Invalid Value"}}

some conversions between languages are not allowed by the API, in thi case you will get a response of this type

{"error":{"errors":[{"domain":"global","reason":"badRequest","message":"Bad language pair: en|zh-TW"}],"code":400,"message":"Bad language pair: en|zh-TW"}}

Now I will show 3 ways to process the data

Using the JSON – SuperObject , this library is very well written and is very easy to use, also is compatible with olders versions of Delphi and Freepascal (win32/64 linux32/64).

function Translate_JSONsuperobject(const Text:string;Source,Dest:TGoogleLanguages):string;
var
  XMLHTTPRequest: IXMLHTTPRequest;
  EncodedRequest: string;
  Response      : string;
begin
  Result:='';
  if Source=Autodetect then //build the URI
    EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleTranslateUrlAuto,[GoogleLanguageApiKey,GoogleLanguagesArr[Dest],HTTPEncode(Text)])
  else
    EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleTranslateUrl,[GoogleLanguageApiKey,HTTPEncode(Text),GoogleLanguagesArr[Source],GoogleLanguagesArr[Dest]]);

  XMLHTTPRequest := CoXMLHTTP.Create;
  XMLHTTPRequest.open('GET', EncodedRequest, False, EmptyParam, EmptyParam); //Make the request
  XMLHTTPRequest.send('');
  Response:=XMLHTTPRequest.responseText;
  if Response<>'' then
  begin
    if SO(Response)['error']=nil then //all ok
     Result := SO(Response)['data.translations[0].translatedText'].AsString
    else //exist an error response
     Result := Format('Error Code %d message %s',[SO(Response)['error.code'].AsInteger,SO(Response)['error.message'].AsString]);
     Result:=HTMLDecode(Result);
  end;

end;

Using the DBXJSON unit included since Delphi 2010

function Translate_DBXJSON(const Text:string;Source,Dest:TGoogleLanguages):string;
var
  XMLHTTPRequest: IXMLHTTPRequest;
  EncodedRequest: string;
  json          : TJSONObject;
  jPair         : TJSONPair;
  jValue        : TJSONValue;
  Response      : string;
begin
  Result:='';
  if Source=Autodetect then //buil the URI
    EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleTranslateUrlAuto,[GoogleLanguageApiKey,GoogleLanguagesArr[Dest],HTTPEncode(Text)])
  else
    EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleTranslateUrl,[GoogleLanguageApiKey,HTTPEncode(Text),GoogleLanguagesArr[Source],GoogleLanguagesArr[Dest]]);

  XMLHTTPRequest := CoXMLHTTP.Create;
  XMLHTTPRequest.open('GET', EncodedRequest, False, EmptyParam, EmptyParam); //make the request
  XMLHTTPRequest.send('');
  Response:=XMLHTTPRequest.responseText;

  if Response<>'' then
  begin
      json    := TJSONObject.ParseJSONValue(TEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(Response),0) as TJSONObject; //create a TJSONObject instance
    try
      jPair   := json.Get(0);
      if jPair.JsonString.value='error' then //if error in response
        Result := Format('Error Code %s message %s',[TJSONObject(jPair.JsonValue).Get(1).JsonValue.Value,TJSONObject(jPair.JsonValue).Get(2).JsonValue.Value])
      else //all ok, show the response,
      begin
        jValue := TJSONArray(TJSONObject(jPair.JsonValue).Get(0).JsonValue).Get(0);
        Result := TJSONObject(jValue).Get(0).JsonValue.Value;
      end;
    finally
       json.Free;
    end;

      Result:=HTMLDecode(Result);
  end;
end;

and finally without using JSON, a very ugly way, but works.

function Translate_JSONLess(const Text:string;Source,Dest:TGoogleLanguages):string;
const
  TagIOk='{"data":{"translations":[{"translatedText":"';
  TagFOk='"}]}}';
  TagErr='{"error":{"errors":[{';
  TagAut=',"detectedSourceLanguage":"';
var
  XMLHTTPRequest: IXMLHTTPRequest;
  EncodedRequest: string;
  Response      : string;
begin
  Result:='';

  if Source=Autodetect then //build the URI
    EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleTranslateUrlAuto,[GoogleLanguageApiKey,GoogleLanguagesArr[Dest],HTTPEncode(Text)])
  else
    EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleTranslateUrl,[GoogleLanguageApiKey,HTTPEncode(Text),GoogleLanguagesArr[Source],GoogleLanguagesArr[Dest]]);

  XMLHTTPRequest := CoXMLHTTP.Create;
  XMLHTTPRequest.open('GET', EncodedRequest, False, EmptyParam, EmptyParam); //make the request
  XMLHTTPRequest.send('');
  Response:=XMLHTTPRequest.responseText;
  if Response<>'' then
  begin
    if StartsStr(TagErr,(Response)) then  //Response  Error
    begin
      Result:='Error'
    end
    else
    begin  //Response Ok
      if Source=Autodetect then
      begin
        Result:=StringReplace(Response,TagIOk,'',[rfReplaceAll]); //remove tags
        Result:=Copy(Result,1,Pos(TagAut,Result)-2);//remove tags
      end
      else
      begin
        Result:=StringReplace(Response,TagIOk,'',[rfReplaceAll]);//remove tags
        Result:=StringReplace(Result,TagFOk,'',[rfReplaceAll]);//remove tags
      end;
    end;

    Result:=HTMLDecode(Result);
  end;
end;

Check the full source showing the 3 ways to access the Google Translate API, listed in this entry.

program GoogleAPITranslate;
//Author  : Rodrigo Ruz V. 2010-12-03  03;30 A.M

{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}
{$DEFINE USE_SUPER_OBJECT}
{$DEFINE USE_DBXJSON}
{$DEFINE USE_JSONLess}

uses
   msxml
  ,Activex
  ,HTTPApp
  ,Variants
  ,SysUtils
  {$IFDEF USE_JSONLess}
  ,StrUtils
  {$ENDIF}
  {$IFDEF USE_SUPER_OBJECT}
  ,superobject
  {$ENDIF}
  {$IFDEF USE_DBXJSON}
  ,DBXJSON
  {$ENDIF}
  ;

  type
  TGoogleLanguages=
  (Autodetect,Afrikaans,Albanian,Arabic,Basque,Belarusian,Bulgarian,Catalan,Chinese,Chinese_Traditional,
  Croatian,Czech,Danish,Dutch,English,Estonian,Filipino,Finnish,French,Galician,German,Greek,
  Haitian_Creole,Hebrew,Hindi,Hungarian,Icelandic,Indonesian,Irish,Italian,Japanese,Latvian,
  Lithuanian,Macedonian,Malay,Maltese,Norwegian,Persian,Polish,Portuguese,Romanian,Russian,
  Serbian,Slovak,Slovenian,Spanish,Swahili,Swedish,Thai,Turkish,Ukrainian,Vietnamese,Welsh,Yiddish);

  const
  GoogleLanguagesArr : array[TGoogleLanguages] of string =
  ( 'Autodetect','af','sq','ar','eu','be','bg','ca','zh-CN','zh-TW','hr','cs','da','nl','en','et','tl','fi','fr','gl',
    'de','el','ht','iw','hi','hu','is','id','ga','it','ja','lv','lt','mk','ms','mt','no','fa','pl','pt',
    'ro','ru','sr','sk','sl','es','sw','sv','th','tr','uk','vi','cy','yi');

  //¡¡¡¡¡¡Please be nice and create your own Google Api Key ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡
  GoogleLanguageApiKey   ='AIzaSyDb18pd1IfkYyupC2XUIANcRoB3f9J2DJg';
  GoogleTranslateUrl     ='https://www.googleapis.com/language/translate/v2?key=%s&q=%s&source=%s&target=%s';
  GoogleTranslateUrlAuto ='https://www.googleapis.com/language/translate/v2?key=%s&target=%s&q=%s';

{$IFDEF USE_DBXJSON}
function Translate_DBXJSON(const Text:string;Source,Dest:TGoogleLanguages):string;
var
  XMLHTTPRequest: IXMLHTTPRequest;
  EncodedRequest: string;
  json          : TJSONObject;
  jPair         : TJSONPair;
  jValue        : TJSONValue;
  Response      : string;
begin
  Result:='';
  if Source=Autodetect then
    EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleTranslateUrlAuto,[GoogleLanguageApiKey,GoogleLanguagesArr[Dest],HTTPEncode(Text)])
  else
    EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleTranslateUrl,[GoogleLanguageApiKey,HTTPEncode(Text),GoogleLanguagesArr[Source],GoogleLanguagesArr[Dest]]);

  XMLHTTPRequest := CoXMLHTTP.Create;
  XMLHTTPRequest.open('GET', EncodedRequest, False, EmptyParam, EmptyParam);
  XMLHTTPRequest.send('');
  Response:=XMLHTTPRequest.responseText;

  if Response<>'' then
  begin
      json    := TJSONObject.ParseJSONValue(TEncoding.ASCII.GetBytes(Response),0) as TJSONObject;
    try
      jPair   := json.Get(0);
      if jPair.JsonString.value='error' then
        //{"error":{"errors":[{"domain":"global","reason":"invalid","message":"Invalid Value"}],"code":400,"message":"Invalid Value"}}
        Result := Format('Error Code %s message %s',[TJSONObject(jPair.JsonValue).Get(1).JsonValue.Value,TJSONObject(jPair.JsonValue).Get(2).JsonValue.Value])
      else
      begin
        //{"data":{"translations":[{"translatedText":"Hola a todos","detectedSourceLanguage":"en"}]}}
        jValue := TJSONArray(TJSONObject(jPair.JsonValue).Get(0).JsonValue).Get(0);
        Result := TJSONObject(jValue).Get(0).JsonValue.Value;
      end;
    finally
       json.Free;
    end;

      Result:=HTMLDecode(Result);
  end;
end;
{$ENDIF}

{$IFDEF USE_SUPER_OBJECT}
function Translate_JSONsuperobject(const Text:string;Source,Dest:TGoogleLanguages):string;
var
  XMLHTTPRequest: IXMLHTTPRequest;
  EncodedRequest: string;
  Response      : string;
begin
  Result:='';
  if Source=Autodetect then
    EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleTranslateUrlAuto,[GoogleLanguageApiKey,GoogleLanguagesArr[Dest],HTTPEncode(Text)])
  else
    EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleTranslateUrl,[GoogleLanguageApiKey,HTTPEncode(Text),GoogleLanguagesArr[Source],GoogleLanguagesArr[Dest]]);

  XMLHTTPRequest := CoXMLHTTP.Create;
  XMLHTTPRequest.open('GET', EncodedRequest, False, EmptyParam, EmptyParam);
  XMLHTTPRequest.send('');
  Response:=XMLHTTPRequest.responseText;
  if Response<>'' then
  begin
  //{"data":{"translations":[{"translatedText":"Hola a todos","detectedSourceLanguage":"en"}]}}
    if SO(Response)['error']=nil then
     Result := SO(Response)['data.translations[0].translatedText'].AsString
    else
     //{"error":{"errors":[{"domain":"global","reason":"invalid","message":"Invalid Value"}],"code":400,"message":"Invalid Value"}}
     //{"error":{"errors":[{"domain":"global","reason":"badRequest","message":"Bad language pair: en|zh-TW"}],"code":400,"message":"Bad language pair: en|zh-TW"}}
     Result := Format('Error Code %d message %s',[SO(Response)['error.code'].AsInteger,SO(Response)['error.message'].AsString]);
     Result:=HTMLDecode(Result);
  end;

end;
{$ENDIF}

{$IFDEF USE_JSONLess}
function Translate_JSONLess(const Text:string;Source,Dest:TGoogleLanguages):string;
const
  TagIOk='{"data":{"translations":[{"translatedText":"';
  TagFOk='"}]}}';
  TagErr='{"error":{"errors":[{';
  TagAut=',"detectedSourceLanguage":"';
var
  XMLHTTPRequest: IXMLHTTPRequest;
  EncodedRequest: string;
  Response      : string;
begin
  Result:='';

  if Source=Autodetect then
    EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleTranslateUrlAuto,[GoogleLanguageApiKey,GoogleLanguagesArr[Dest],HTTPEncode(Text)])
  else
    EncodedRequest:=Format(GoogleTranslateUrl,[GoogleLanguageApiKey,HTTPEncode(Text),GoogleLanguagesArr[Source],GoogleLanguagesArr[Dest]]);

  XMLHTTPRequest := CoXMLHTTP.Create;
  XMLHTTPRequest.open('GET', EncodedRequest, False, EmptyParam, EmptyParam);
  XMLHTTPRequest.send('');
  Response:=XMLHTTPRequest.responseText;
  if Response<>'' then
  begin
    if StartsStr(TagErr,(Response)) then  //Response  Error
    begin
      Result:='Error'
    end
    else
    begin  //Response Ok
      if Source=Autodetect then
      begin
        Result:=StringReplace(Response,TagIOk,'',[rfReplaceAll]);
        Result:=Copy(Result,1,Pos(TagAut,Result)-2);
      end
      else
      begin
        Result:=StringReplace(Response,TagIOk,'',[rfReplaceAll]);
        Result:=StringReplace(Result,TagFOk,'',[rfReplaceAll]);
      end;
    end;

    Result:=HTMLDecode(Result);
  end;
end;
{$ENDIF}

Const
 Text ='"Hello  World"';
Var
 TranslatedText : string;
begin
  try
    CoInitialize(nil);
    try
       {$IFDEF USE_JSONLess}
       Writeln('Without JSON (very ugly)');
       Writeln('');
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONLess(Text,Autodetect,Spanish);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONLess(Text,English,Chinese_Traditional);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONLess(Text,English,German);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONLess(Text,English,Danish);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONLess(Text,English,Portuguese);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       Writeln('');
       {$ENDIF}

       {$IFDEF USE_SUPER_OBJECT}
       Writeln('Using the superobject library');
       Writeln('');
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONsuperobject(Text,Autodetect,Spanish);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONsuperobject(Text,English,Chinese_Traditional);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONsuperobject(Text,English,German);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONsuperobject(Text,English,Danish);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_JSONsuperobject(Text,English,Portuguese);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       Writeln('');
       {$ENDIF}

       {$IFDEF USE_DBXJSON}
       Writeln('Using the DBXJSON unit');
       Writeln('');
       TranslatedText:=Translate_DBXJSON(Text,Autodetect,Spanish);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_DBXJSON(Text,English,Chinese_Traditional);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_DBXJSON(Text,English,German);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_DBXJSON(Text,English,Danish);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       TranslatedText:=Translate_DBXJSON(Text,English,Portuguese);
       Writeln(TranslatedText);
       Writeln('');
       {$ENDIF}

    finally
     CoUninitialize;
    end;
  except
    on E: Exception do
      Writeln(E.ClassName, ': ', E.Message);
  end;
  Readln;
end.
Check this link  <a href=”http://code.google.com/apis/language/translate/terms.html&#8221; rel=”nofollow”>Google Translate API Terms of Use</a>.


12 Comments

Generating a “unique” hardware ID using Delphi and the WMI

The general idea to generate a Hardware ID (machine fingerprint) is collect data from the CPU, HDD, BIOS, NIC and another hardware components which have serial numbers and unique characteristics. you can use this ID to generate licenses based in this fingerprint which must be “unique” by machine.

for this simple sample i picked this set of WMI classes Win32_Processor (Get CPU info), Win32_BaseBoard (retrieve info about the motherboard), Win32_BIOS (Get BIOS Data) and Win32_OperatingSystem (Get Windows information). Of course you can choose other WMI classes, and combinations that you want.

Check the full source code of the hardware ID generator.

(Tested in Delphi 2007 and Delphi XE)

program WMIHardwareID;

{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}
{$DEFINE Use_Jwscl} //necessary to obtain a hash of the data using md2, md4, md5 or sha1

uses
  {$IFDEF Use_Jwscl}
  JwsclTypes,
  JwsclCryptProvider,
  {$ENDIF}
  Classes,
  SysUtils,
  ActiveX,
  ComObj,
  Variants;

type
   TMotherBoardInfo   = (Mb_SerialNumber,Mb_Manufacturer,Mb_Product,Mb_Model);
   TMotherBoardInfoSet= set of TMotherBoardInfo;
   TProcessorInfo     = (Pr_Description,Pr_Manufacturer,Pr_Name,Pr_ProcessorId,Pr_UniqueId);
   TProcessorInfoSet  = set of TProcessorInfo;
   TBIOSInfo          = (Bs_BIOSVersion,Bs_BuildNumber,Bs_Description,Bs_Manufacturer,Bs_Name,Bs_SerialNumber,Bs_Version);
   TBIOSInfoSet       = set of TBIOSInfo;
   TOSInfo            = (Os_BuildNumber,Os_BuildType,Os_Manufacturer,Os_Name,Os_SerialNumber,Os_Version);
   TOSInfoSet         = set of TOSInfo;

const //properties names to get the data
   MotherBoardInfoArr: array[TMotherBoardInfo] of AnsiString =
                        ('SerialNumber','Manufacturer','Product','Model');

   OsInfoArr         : array[TOSInfo] of AnsiString =
                        ('BuildNumber','BuildType','Manufacturer','Name','SerialNumber','Version');

   BiosInfoArr       : array[TBIOSInfo] of AnsiString =
                        ('BIOSVersion','BuildNumber','Description','Manufacturer','Name','SerialNumber','Version');

   ProcessorInfoArr  : array[TProcessorInfo] of AnsiString =
                        ('Description','Manufacturer','Name','ProcessorId','UniqueId');

type
   THardwareId  = class
   private
    FOSInfo         : TOSInfoSet;
    FBIOSInfo       : TBIOSInfoSet;
    FProcessorInfo  : TProcessorInfoSet;
    FMotherBoardInfo: TMotherBoardInfoSet;
    FBuffer         : AnsiString;
    function GetHardwareIdHex: AnsiString;
  {$IFDEF Use_Jwscl}
    function GetHashString(Algorithm: TJwHashAlgorithm; Buffer : Pointer;Size:Integer) : AnsiString;
    function GetHardwareIdMd5: AnsiString;
    function GetHardwareIdMd2: AnsiString;
    function GetHardwareIdMd4: AnsiString;
    function GetHardwareIdSHA: AnsiString;
  {$ENDIF}
   public
     //Set the properties to  be used in the generation of the hardware id
    property  MotherBoardInfo : TMotherBoardInfoSet read FMotherBoardInfo write FMotherBoardInfo;
    property  ProcessorInfo : TProcessorInfoSet read FProcessorInfo write FProcessorInfo;
    property  BIOSInfo: TBIOSInfoSet read FBIOSInfo write FBIOSInfo;
    property  OSInfo  : TOSInfoSet read FOSInfo write FOSInfo;
    property  Buffer : AnsiString read FBuffer; //return the content of the data collected in the system
    property  HardwareIdHex : AnsiString read GetHardwareIdHex; //get a hexadecimal represntation of the data collected
  {$IFDEF Use_Jwscl}
    property  HardwareIdMd2  : AnsiString read GetHardwareIdMd2; //get a Md2 hash of the data collected
    property  HardwareIdMd4  : AnsiString read GetHardwareIdMd4; //get a Md4 hash of the data collected
    property  HardwareIdMd5  : AnsiString read GetHardwareIdMd5; //get a Md5 hash of the data collected
    property  HardwareIdSHA  : AnsiString read GetHardwareIdSHA; //get a SHA1 hash of the data collected
  {$ENDIF}
    procedure GenerateHardwareId; //calculate the hardware id
    constructor  Create(Generate:Boolean=True); overload;
    Destructor  Destroy; override;
   end;

function VarArrayToStr(const vArray: variant): AnsiString;

  function _VarToStr(const V: variant): AnsiString;
  var
  Vt: integer;
  begin
   Vt := VarType(V);
      case Vt of
        varSmallint,
        varInteger  : Result := AnsiString(IntToStr(integer(V)));
        varSingle,
        varDouble,
        varCurrency : Result := AnsiString(FloatToStr(Double(V)));
        varDate     : Result := AnsiString(VarToStr(V));
        varOleStr   : Result := AnsiString(WideString(V));
        varBoolean  : Result := AnsiString(VarToStr(V));
        varVariant  : Result := AnsiString(VarToStr(Variant(V)));
        varByte     : Result := AnsiChar(byte(V));
        varString   : Result := AnsiString(V);
        varArray    : Result := VarArrayToStr(Variant(V));
      end;
  end;

var
i : integer;
begin
    Result := '[';
    if (VarType(vArray) and VarArray)=0 then
       Result := _VarToStr(vArray)
    else
    for i := VarArrayLowBound(vArray, 1) to VarArrayHighBound(vArray, 1) do
     if i=VarArrayLowBound(vArray, 1)  then
      Result := Result+_VarToStr(vArray[i])
     else
      Result := Result+'|'+_VarToStr(vArray[i]);

    Result:=Result+']';
end;

function VarStrNull(const V:OleVariant):AnsiString; //avoid problems with null strings
begin
  Result:='';
  if not VarIsNull(V) then
  begin
    if VarIsArray(V) then
       Result:=VarArrayToStr(V)
    else
    Result:=AnsiString(VarToStr(V));
  end;
end;

{ THardwareId }

constructor THardwareId.Create(Generate:Boolean=True);
begin
   inherited Create;
   CoInitialize(nil);
   FBuffer          :='';
   //Set the propeties to be used in the hardware id generation
   FMotherBoardInfo :=[Mb_SerialNumber,Mb_Manufacturer,Mb_Product,Mb_Model];
   FOSInfo          :=[Os_BuildNumber,Os_BuildType,Os_Manufacturer,Os_Name,Os_SerialNumber,Os_Version];
   FBIOSInfo        :=[Bs_BIOSVersion,Bs_BuildNumber,Bs_Description,Bs_Manufacturer,Bs_Name,Bs_SerialNumber,Bs_Version];
   FProcessorInfo   :=[];//including the processor info is expensive [Pr_Description,Pr_Manufacturer,Pr_Name,Pr_ProcessorId,Pr_UniqueId];
   if Generate then
    GenerateHardwareId;
end;

destructor THardwareId.Destroy;
begin
  CoUninitialize;
  inherited;
end;

//Main function which collect the system data.
procedure THardwareId.GenerateHardwareId;
var
  objSWbemLocator : OLEVariant;
  objWMIService   : OLEVariant;
  objWbemObjectSet: OLEVariant;
  oWmiObject      : OLEVariant;
  oEnum           : IEnumvariant;
  iValue          : LongWord;
  SDummy          : AnsiString;
  Mb              : TMotherBoardInfo;
  Os              : TOSInfo;
  Bs              : TBIOSInfo;
  Pr              : TProcessorInfo;
begin;
  objSWbemLocator := CreateOleObject('WbemScripting.SWbemLocator');
  objWMIService   := objSWbemLocator.ConnectServer('localhost','root\cimv2', '','');

  if FMotherBoardInfo<>[] then //MotherBoard info
  begin
    objWbemObjectSet:= objWMIService.ExecQuery('SELECT * FROM Win32_BaseBoard','WQL',0);
    oEnum           := IUnknown(objWbemObjectSet._NewEnum) as IEnumVariant;
    while oEnum.Next(1, oWmiObject, iValue) = 0 do
    begin
      for Mb := Low(TMotherBoardInfo) to High(TMotherBoardInfo) do
       if Mb in FMotherBoardInfo then
       begin
          SDummy:=VarStrNull(oWmiObject.Properties_.Item(MotherBoardInfoArr[Mb]).Value);
          FBuffer:=FBuffer+SDummy;
       end;
       oWmiObject:=Unassigned;
    end;
  end;

  if FOSInfo<>[] then//Windows info
  begin
    objWbemObjectSet:= objWMIService.ExecQuery('SELECT * FROM Win32_OperatingSystem','WQL',0);
    oEnum           := IUnknown(objWbemObjectSet._NewEnum) as IEnumVariant;
    while oEnum.Next(1, oWmiObject, iValue) = 0 do
    begin
      for Os := Low(TOSInfo) to High(TOSInfo) do
       if Os in FOSInfo then
       begin
          SDummy:=VarStrNull(oWmiObject.Properties_.Item(OsInfoArr[Os]).Value);
          FBuffer:=FBuffer+SDummy;
       end;
       oWmiObject:=Unassigned;
    end;
  end;

  if FBIOSInfo<>[] then//BIOS info
  begin
    objWbemObjectSet:= objWMIService.ExecQuery('SELECT * FROM Win32_BIOS','WQL',0);
    oEnum           := IUnknown(objWbemObjectSet._NewEnum) as IEnumVariant;
    while oEnum.Next(1, oWmiObject, iValue) = 0 do
    begin
      for Bs := Low(TBIOSInfo) to High(TBIOSInfo) do
       if Bs in FBIOSInfo then
       begin
          SDummy:=VarStrNull(oWmiObject.Properties_.Item(BiosInfoArr[Bs]).Value);
          FBuffer:=FBuffer+SDummy;
       end;
       oWmiObject:=Unassigned;
    end;
  end;

  if FProcessorInfo<>[] then//CPU info
  begin
    objWbemObjectSet:= objWMIService.ExecQuery('SELECT * FROM Win32_Processor','WQL',0);
    oEnum           := IUnknown(objWbemObjectSet._NewEnum) as IEnumVariant;
    while oEnum.Next(1, oWmiObject, iValue) = 0 do
    begin
      for Pr := Low(TProcessorInfo) to High(TProcessorInfo) do
       if Pr in FProcessorInfo then
       begin
          SDummy:=VarStrNull(oWmiObject.Properties_.Item(ProcessorInfoArr[Pr]).Value);
          FBuffer:=FBuffer+SDummy;
       end;
       oWmiObject:=Unassigned;
    end;
  end;

end;

function THardwareId.GetHardwareIdHex: AnsiString;
begin
    SetLength(Result,Length(FBuffer)*2);
    BinToHex(PAnsiChar(FBuffer),PAnsiChar(Result),Length(FBuffer));
end;

{$IFDEF Use_Jwscl}
function THardwareId.GetHashString(Algorithm: TJwHashAlgorithm; Buffer : Pointer;Size:Integer) : AnsiString;
var
  Hash: TJwHash;
  HashSize: Cardinal;
  HashData: Pointer;
begin
  Hash := TJwHash.Create(Algorithm);
  try
    Hash.HashData(Buffer,Size);
    HashData := Hash.RetrieveHash(HashSize);
    try
        SetLength(Result,HashSize*2);
        BinToHex(PAnsiChar(HashData),PAnsiChar(Result),HashSize);
    finally
      TJwHash.FreeBuffer(HashData);
    end;
  finally
    Hash.Free;
  end;
end;

function THardwareId.GetHardwareIdMd2: AnsiString;
begin
   Result:=GetHashString(haMD2,@FBuffer[1],Length(FBuffer));
end;

function THardwareId.GetHardwareIdMd4: AnsiString;
begin
   Result:=GetHashString(haMD4,@FBuffer[1],Length(FBuffer));
end;

function THardwareId.GetHardwareIdMd5: AnsiString;
begin
   Result:=GetHashString(haMD5,@FBuffer[1],Length(FBuffer));
end;

function THardwareId.GetHardwareIdSHA: AnsiString;
begin
   Result:=GetHashString(haSHA,@FBuffer[1],Length(FBuffer));
end;

{$ENDIF}

//testing the THardwareId object
var
  HWID : THardwareId;
  dt   : TDateTime;
begin
 try
    HWID:=THardwareId.Create(False);
    try
       dt := Now;
       HWID.GenerateHardwareId;
       dt := now - dt;
       Writeln(Format('Hardware Id Generated in %s',[FormatDateTime('hh:mm:nn.zzz',dt)]));
       Writeln(Format('%s %s',['Buffer ',HWID.Buffer]));
       Writeln('');
       Writeln(Format('%s %s',['Hex  ',HWID.HardwareIdHex]));
      {$IFDEF Use_Jwscl}
       Writeln(Format('%s %s',['Md2  ',HWID.HardwareIdMd2]));
       Writeln(Format('%s %s',['Md4  ',HWID.HardwareIdMd4]));
       Writeln(Format('%s %s',['Md5  ',HWID.HardwareIdMd5]));
       Writeln(Format('%s %s',['SHA1 ',HWID.HardwareIdSHA]));
      {$ENDIF}
      Readln;
    finally
     HWID.Free;
    end;
 except
    on E:Exception do
    begin
        Writeln(E.Classname, ':', E.Message);
        Readln;
    end;
  end;
end.


13 Comments

Accesing the WMI from Object Pascal Code (Delphi, Oxygene, FreePascal)

Due to many developers don’t know how access the WMI from Pascal code, I decided to write this entry to show a simple set of samples using Delphi Win32, Delphi.Net, Oxygene and Free-pascal.

Delphi .Net

Delphi Prism

Delphi win32 importing the Microsoft WMIScripting Library.

Delphi win32 Late-binding.

Lazarus Late-binding

UPDATE

To access the WMI using COM  you must check this article

Accesing the WMI from Delphi and FPC via COM (without late binding or WbemScripting_TLB)

All the code samples uses the Win32_BaseBoard wmi class and are console applications just for simplicity.

The code showed in this entry can be optimized a lot for experienced developers, these simple  piece of code only pretend give a basic idea which how connect to the  WMi service and retieve data using a WQL query.

This is the Managed Object Format (MOF) representation of this class.

class Win32_BaseBoard : CIM_Card
{
  string   Caption;
  string   ConfigOptions[];
  string   CreationClassName;
  real32   Depth;
  string   Description;
  real32   Height;
  boolean  HostingBoard;
  boolean  HotSwappable;
  datetime InstallDate;
  string   Manufacturer;
  string   Model;
  string   Name;
  string   OtherIdentifyingInfo;
  string   PartNumber;
  boolean  PoweredOn;
  string   Product;
  boolean  Removable;
  boolean  Replaceable;
  string   RequirementsDescription;
  boolean  RequiresDaughterBoard;
  string   SerialNumber;
  string   SKU;
  string   SlotLayout;
  boolean  SpecialRequirements;
  string   Status;
  string   Tag;
  string   Version;
  real32   Weight;
  real32   Width;
};

Using Delphi Win32 and importing the Microsoft WMIScripting Library

This must be the most used method for accessing the WMI from Delphi Win32, basically consist in import the Microsoft WMIScripting Library and then delphi will create a wrapper containing all the types, const and enumerations to access the WMI, the main objects(interfaces) are ISWbemServices (which create a connection with WMI Windows Service) , ISWbemObjectSet (Execute a WQL Query) and ISWbemPropertySet

Check the picture to see the Microsoft Wmi Scripting library organization.

The basics steps are

1) import the Microsoft WMIScripting Library

2) Establish a connection with the WMI service in a local o remote computer. using the TSWbemLocator.ConnectServer function.

    function ConnectServer(const strServer: WideString; const strNamespace: WideString;
                           const strUser: WideString; const strPassword: WideString;
                           const strLocale: WideString; const strAuthority: WideString;
                           iSecurityFlags: Integer; const objWbemNamedValueSet: IDispatch): ISWbemServices;

 

SWbemServices := CoSWbemLocator.Create.ConnectServer('.', 'root\cimv2','', '', '', '', 0, nil);

3) Execute your WQL Query using the ISWbemServices.ExecQuery function which returns a instance to the ISWbemObjectSet object.

this is the declaration of the ISWbemServices.ExecQuery

    function ExecQuery(const strQuery: WideString; const strQueryLanguage: WideString;
                       iFlags: Integer; const objWbemNamedValueSet: IDispatch): ISWbemObjectSet; safecall;

and this is a sample of calling this function

SWbemObjectSet  := SWbemServices.ExecQuery('SELECT * FROM Win32_BaseBoard','WQL', 0, nil);

4) the next step is iterate over the returned data, to do this we can use the ISWbemObjectSet._NewEnum property wich return an enumerator to the collection returned by the SWbemObjectSet

so using a IEnumVariant (which is part of the ActiveX unit) variable we can obtain the enumerator to the collection in this way.

Enum := (SWbemObjectSet._NewEnum) as IEnumVariant;

5) finally we need access the properties of the current collection, using the SWbemObject.Properties_.Item function

    while (Enum.Next(1, TempObj, Value) = S_OK) do
    begin
       SWbemObject     := IUnknown(tempObj) as ISWBemObject;
       SWbemPropertySet:= SWbemObject.Properties_;
       SWbemPropertySet.Item('SerialNumber', 0).Get_Value;//Get the value of the SerialNumber property
    end;

Advantages of importing the Microsoft WMIScripting Library

1) Full access through the IDE (code-completion) to the types, enumerations and constants of the WMIScripting Library.
2) easy to debug syntax errors which would have been missed had you used late binding.

Drawbacks

1) Depending of the Windows version which you uses, you can get different results when you import the WMIScripting Library, check this link.

2) The final exe size is incremented when you import this library.

Check the full sample source code to get a idea how use this method.

program WmiDelphiWin32_Tlb;

{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}

uses
  ActiveX,
  Variants,
  SysUtils,
  WbemScripting_TLB in '..\..\..\Documents\RAD Studio\5.0\Imports\WbemScripting_TLB.pas';//

 function VarArrayToStr(const vArray: variant): string;

    function _VarToStr(const V: variant): string;
    var
    Vt: integer;
    begin
    Vt := VarType(V);
        case Vt of
          varSmallint,
          varInteger  : Result := IntToStr(integer(V));
          varSingle,
          varDouble,
          varCurrency : Result := FloatToStr(Double(V));
          varDate     : Result := VarToStr(V);
          varOleStr   : Result := WideString(V);
          varBoolean  : Result := VarToStr(V);
          varVariant  : Result := VarToStr(Variant(V));
          varByte     : Result := char(byte(V));
          varString   : Result := String(V);
          varArray    : Result := VarArrayToStr(Variant(V));
        end;
    end;

var
i : integer;
begin
    Result := '[';
     if (VarType(vArray) and VarArray)=0 then
       Result := _VarToStr(vArray)
    else
    for i := VarArrayLowBound(vArray, 1) to VarArrayHighBound(vArray, 1) do
     if i=VarArrayLowBound(vArray, 1)  then
      Result := Result+_VarToStr(vArray[i])
     else
      Result := Result+'|'+_VarToStr(vArray[i]);

    Result:=Result+']';
end;

function VarStrNull(const V:OleVariant):string; //avoid problems with null strings
begin
  Result:='';
  if not VarIsNull(V) then
  begin
    if VarIsArray(V) then
       Result:=VarArrayToStr(V)
    else
    Result:=VarToStr(V);
  end;
end;

Procedure GetWin32_BaseBoardInfo;
var
  SWbemServices   : ISWbemServices;
  SWbemObjectSet  : ISWbemObjectSet;
  Item            : Variant;
  Enum            : IEnumVariant;
  TempObj         : OleVariant;
  Value           : Cardinal;
  SWbemObject     : ISWbemObject;
  SWbemPropertySet: ISWbemPropertySet;
begin
  SWbemServices := CoSWbemLocator.Create.ConnectServer('.', 'root\cimv2','', '', '', '', 0, nil);
  SWbemObjectSet  := SWbemServices.ExecQuery('SELECT * FROM Win32_BaseBoard','WQL', 0, nil);
  Enum := (SWbemObjectSet._NewEnum) as IEnumVariant;

    while (Enum.Next(1, TempObj, Value) = S_OK) do
    begin
       SWbemObject     := IUnknown(tempObj) as ISWBemObject;
       SWbemPropertySet:= SWbemObject.Properties_;

        Writeln(Format('Caption                   %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('Caption', 0).Get_Value)]));// String
        Writeln(Format('ConfigOptions             %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('ConfigOptions', 0).Get_Value)]));// String
        Writeln(Format('CreationClassName         %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('CreationClassName', 0).Get_Value)]));// String
        Writeln(Format('Depth                     %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('Depth', 0).Get_Value)]));// Real32
        Writeln(Format('Description               %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('Description', 0).Get_Value)]));// String
        Writeln(Format('Height                    %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('Height', 0).Get_Value)]));// Real32
        Writeln(Format('HostingBoard              %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('HostingBoard', 0).Get_Value)]));// Boolean
        Writeln(Format('HotSwappable              %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('HotSwappable', 0).Get_Value)]));// Boolean
        Writeln(Format('InstallDate               %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('InstallDate', 0).Get_Value)]));// Datetime
        Writeln(Format('Manufacturer              %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('Manufacturer', 0).Get_Value)]));// String
        Writeln(Format('Model                     %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('Model', 0).Get_Value)]));// String
        Writeln(Format('Name                      %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('Name', 0).Get_Value)]));// String
        Writeln(Format('OtherIdentifyingInfo      %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('OtherIdentifyingInfo', 0).Get_Value)]));// String
        Writeln(Format('PartNumber                %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('PartNumber', 0).Get_Value)]));// String
        Writeln(Format('PoweredOn                 %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('PoweredOn', 0).Get_Value)]));// Boolean
        Writeln(Format('Product                   %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('Product', 0).Get_Value)]));// String
        Writeln(Format('Removable                 %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('Removable', 0).Get_Value)]));// Boolean
        Writeln(Format('Replaceable               %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('Replaceable', 0).Get_Value)]));// Boolean
        Writeln(Format('RequirementsDescription   %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('RequirementsDescription', 0).Get_Value)]));// String
        Writeln(Format('RequiresDaughterBoard     %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('RequiresDaughterBoard', 0).Get_Value)]));// Boolean
        Writeln(Format('SerialNumber              %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('SerialNumber', 0).Get_Value)]));// String
        Writeln(Format('SKU                       %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('SKU', 0).Get_Value)]));// String
        Writeln(Format('SlotLayout                %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('SlotLayout', 0).Get_Value)]));// String
        Writeln(Format('SpecialRequirements       %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('SpecialRequirements', 0).Get_Value)]));// Boolean
        Writeln(Format('Status                    %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('Status', 0).Get_Value)]));// String
        Writeln(Format('Tag                       %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('Tag', 0).Get_Value)]));// String
        Writeln(Format('Version                   %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('Version', 0).Get_Value)]));// String
        Writeln(Format('Weight                    %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('Weight', 0).Get_Value)]));// Real32
        Writeln(Format('Width                     %s',[VarStrNull(SWbemPropertySet.Item('Width', 0).Get_Value)]));// Real32
        Writeln('');
        TempObj:=Unassigned;
    end;

end;

begin
 try
    CoInitialize(nil);
    try
      GetWin32_BaseBoardInfo;
      Readln;
    finally
      CoUninitialize;
    end;
 except
    on E:Exception do
    begin
        Writeln(E.Classname, ':', E.Message);
        Readln;
    end;
  end;
end.

Using Delphi and Late-Binding

Using the CreateOleObject function

You can access the WMI using the CreateOleObject function from delphi passing the WbemScripting.SWbemLocator class name

  var
     FSWbemLocator : OLEVariant;
  begin
    FSWbemLocator := CreateOleObject('WbemScripting.SWbemLocator');
    //
  end;

And then to run a WQL sentence

const
  WbemUser            ='';
  WbemPassword        ='';
  WbemComputer        ='localhost';
  wbemFlagForwardOnly = $00000020;
var
  FSWbemLocator : OLEVariant;
  FWMIService   : OLEVariant;
  FWbemObjectSet: OLEVariant;
  FWbemObject   : OLEVariant;
  oEnum         : IEnumvariant;
  iValue        : LongWord;
begin;
  //create an instance to the WMI Scripting SWbemLocator
  FSWbemLocator := CreateOleObject('WbemScripting.SWbemLocator');
  //connect to the server
  FWMIService   := FSWbemLocator.ConnectServer(WbemComputer, 'root\CIMV2', WbemUser, WbemPassword);
  //execute the WQL sentence
  FWbemObjectSet:= FWMIService.ExecQuery('SELECT * FROM Win32_BaseBoard','WQL',wbemFlagForwardOnly);
  //get the enumerator
  oEnum         := IUnknown(FWbemObjectSet._NewEnum) as IEnumVariant;
  //traverse the data
  while oEnum.Next(1, FWbemObject, iValue) = 0 do
  begin
    Writeln(Format('Caption    %s',[FWbemObject.Caption]));// String
    Writeln('');
    FWbemObject:=Unassigned;
  end;
end;

Using a Moniker

Another way to access the WMI is using a Moniker, to do this we need to use the IBindCtx and IMoniker interfaces.

Check this sample to create a wmi instance using these interfaces.

  function GetWMIObject(const objectName: String): IDispatch;
  var
    chEaten: Integer;
    BindCtx: IBindCtx;//for access to a bind context
    Moniker: IMoniker;//Enables you to use a moniker object
  begin
    OleCheck(CreateBindCtx(0, bindCtx));
    OleCheck(MkParseDisplayName(BindCtx, StringToOleStr(objectName), chEaten, Moniker));//Converts a string into a moniker that identifies the object named by the string
    OleCheck(Moniker.BindToObject(BindCtx, nil, IDispatch, Result));//Binds to the specified object
  end;

//and call in this way
GetWMIObject('winmgmts:\\localhost\root\CIMV2');

Now we can run the query an get the results

See the snippet, is very similar to the used when we import the WbemScripting_TLB unit. but the main difference is which all the variables are declarated as Variants (OLEVariant) because we don’t have available the types, enumeratios and constants of the WbemScripting_TLB unit.

var
  objWMIService : OLEVariant;
  colItems      : OLEVariant;
  colItem       : OLEVariant;
  oEnum         : IEnumvariant;
  iValue        : LongWord;
begin;
  objWMIService := GetWMIObject('winmgmts:\\localhost\root\CIMV2');
  colItems      := objWMIService.ExecQuery('SELECT * FROM Win32_BaseBoard','WQL',0);
  oEnum         := IUnknown(colItems._NewEnum) as IEnumVariant;

3) finally to access a particular property we can get the value directly using his name.

 while oEnum.Next(1, colItem, iValue) = 0 do
 begin
     Writeln('Serial Number : '+colItem.SerialNumber);
     colItem:=Unassigned; //avoid memory leaks caused by the oEnum.Next function
 end;

Advantages of Late Binding

1. Is a very flexible solution to access the WMI, and the code to manage the wmi objects is very close to vbscript, which is good because there are thousands of examples of vbscript on the Internet to access the WMI Data.

2. Another very important advantage is that code which uses late binding is more certain to be version-independent, because when you create a WMIObject using winmgmts you are not referencing any particular version of the WMI.

3. The final exe executable is small because you don’t import any wrapper.

Drawbacks

1. You don’t have access to the wmi types, constants and enumerations from the ide, because the code is interpreted in run-time.

2. Hard to debug syntax errors,because the compiler don’t know about the WMI types
so you can write something like this (which is wrong) and the code will be compiled anyway.

 colItems.Properties_('Prop').Qualifiers_;

the right version must be.

 colItems.Properties_.Item('Prop').Qualifiers_;

Check the code using Late Binding to access the WMI from delphi (Valid for versions 5 to XE)

program WmiDelphiWin32_LateBinding;

{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}

uses
  SysUtils,
  ActiveX,
  ComObj,
  Variants;//introduced in delphi 6, if you use a older version of delphi you just remove this

function VarArrayToStr(const vArray: variant): string;

    function _VarToStr(const V: variant): string;
    var
    Vt: integer;
    begin
    Vt := VarType(V);
        case Vt of
          varSmallint,
          varInteger  : Result := IntToStr(integer(V));
          varSingle,
          varDouble,
          varCurrency : Result := FloatToStr(Double(V));
          varDate     : Result := VarToStr(V);
          varOleStr   : Result := WideString(V);
          varBoolean  : Result := VarToStr(V);
          varVariant  : Result := VarToStr(Variant(V));
          varByte     : Result := char(byte(V));
          varString   : Result := String(V);
          varArray    : Result := VarArrayToStr(Variant(V));
        end;
    end;

var
i : integer;
begin
    Result := '[';
     if (VarType(vArray) and VarArray)=0 then
       Result := _VarToStr(vArray)
    else
    for i := VarArrayLowBound(vArray, 1) to VarArrayHighBound(vArray, 1) do
     if i=VarArrayLowBound(vArray, 1)  then
      Result := Result+_VarToStr(vArray[i])
     else
      Result := Result+'|'+_VarToStr(vArray[i]);

    Result:=Result+']';
end;

function VarStrNull(const V:OleVariant):string; //avoid problems with null strings
begin
  Result:='';
  if not VarIsNull(V) then
  begin
    if VarIsArray(V) then
       Result:=VarArrayToStr(V)
    else
    Result:=VarToStr(V);
  end;
end;

function GetWMIObject(const objectName: String): IDispatch; //create the Wmi instance
var
  chEaten: Integer;
  BindCtx: IBindCtx;
  Moniker: IMoniker;
begin
  OleCheck(CreateBindCtx(0, bindCtx));
  OleCheck(MkParseDisplayName(BindCtx, StringToOleStr(objectName), chEaten, Moniker));
  OleCheck(Moniker.BindToObject(BindCtx, nil, IDispatch, Result));
end;

//The Win32_BaseBoard class represents a base board (also known as a motherboard
//or system board).

procedure  GetWin32_BaseBoardInfo;
var
  objWMIService : OLEVariant;
  colItems      : OLEVariant;
  colItem       : OLEVariant;
  oEnum         : IEnumvariant;
  iValue        : LongWord;
begin;
  objWMIService := GetWMIObject('winmgmts:\\localhost\root\CIMV2');
  colItems      := objWMIService.ExecQuery('SELECT * FROM Win32_BaseBoard','WQL',0);
  oEnum         := IUnknown(colItems._NewEnum) as IEnumVariant;
  while oEnum.Next(1, colItem, iValue) = 0 do
  begin
    Writeln(Format('Caption                  %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.Caption)]));// String
    Writeln(Format('ConfigOptions            %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.ConfigOptions)]));// String
    Writeln(Format('CreationClassName        %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.CreationClassName)]));// String
    Writeln(Format('Depth                    %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.Depth)]));// Real32
    Writeln(Format('Description              %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.Description)]));// String
    Writeln(Format('Height                   %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.Height)]));// Real32
    Writeln(Format('HostingBoard             %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.HostingBoard)]));// Boolean
    Writeln(Format('HotSwappable             %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.HotSwappable)]));// Boolean
    Writeln(Format('InstallDate              %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.InstallDate)]));// Datetime
    Writeln(Format('Manufacturer             %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.Manufacturer)]));// String
    Writeln(Format('Model                    %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.Model)]));// String
    Writeln(Format('Name                     %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.Name)]));// String
    Writeln(Format('OtherIdentifyingInfo     %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.OtherIdentifyingInfo)]));// String
    Writeln(Format('PartNumber               %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.PartNumber)]));// String
    Writeln(Format('PoweredOn                %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.PoweredOn)]));// Boolean
    Writeln(Format('Product                  %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.Product)]));// String
    Writeln(Format('Removable                %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.Removable)]));// Boolean
    Writeln(Format('Replaceable              %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.Replaceable)]));// Boolean
    Writeln(Format('RequirementsDescription  %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.RequirementsDescription)]));// String
    Writeln(Format('RequiresDaughterBoard    %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.RequiresDaughterBoard)]));// Boolean
    Writeln(Format('SerialNumber             %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.SerialNumber)]));// String
    Writeln(Format('SKU                      %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.SKU)]));// String
    Writeln(Format('SlotLayout               %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.SlotLayout)]));// String
    Writeln(Format('SpecialRequirements      %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.SpecialRequirements)]));// Boolean
    Writeln(Format('Status                   %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.Status)]));// String
    Writeln(Format('Tag                      %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.Tag)]));// String
    Writeln(Format('Version                  %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.Version)]));// String
    Writeln(Format('Weight                   %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.Weight)]));// Real32
    Writeln(Format('Width                    %s',[VarStrNull(colItem.Width)]));// Real32
    Writeln('');
    colItem:=Unassigned;
  end;
end;

begin
 try
    CoInitialize(nil);
    try
      GetWin32_BaseBoardInfo;
      Readln;
    finally
    CoUninitialize;
    end;
 except
    on E:Exception do
    begin
        Writeln(E.Classname, ':', E.Message);
        Readln;
    end;
  end;
end.

Using Delphi .Net (Valid for versions 2005, 2006, 2007)

1) before to use the .net wmi objects you add the System.Management reference to your project.

2) Now we need make the connection to the WMi service, to do this you must use the System.Management namespace and the ManagementObjectSearcher class wich have several constructor to facilitate the connection with the wmi, this class is very versatile and let establish the connection and make a WQL query in a single step.

Check the constructors availables to this class

Public method ManagementObjectSearcher() 	//Initializes a new instance of the ManagementObjectSearcher class. After some properties on this object are set, the object can be used to invoke a query for management information. This is the default constructor.

 

Public method ManagementObjectSearcher(ObjectQuery) 	//Initializes a new instance of the ManagementObjectSearcher class used to invoke the specified query for management information.

 

Public method ManagementObjectSearcher(String) 	//Initializes a new instance of the ManagementObjectSearcher class used to invoke the specified query for management information.

 

Public method ManagementObjectSearcher(ManagementScope, ObjectQuery) //Initializes a new instance of the ManagementObjectSearcher class used to invoke the specified query in the specified scope.

 

Public method ManagementObjectSearcher(String, String) 	//Initializes a new instance of the ManagementObjectSearcher class used to invoke the specified query in the specified scope.

 

Public method ManagementObjectSearcher(ManagementScope, ObjectQuery, EnumerationOptions) 	//Initializes a new instance of the

 

Public method ManagementObjectSearcher class //to be used to invoke the specified query in the specified scope, with the specified options.

 

Public method ManagementObjectSearcher(String, String, EnumerationOptions) 	//Initializes a new instance of the ManagementObjectSearcher class used to invoke the specified query, in the specified scope, and with the specified options.

so to establishing the connection and make the query to the WMI you must write a code like this

Searcher  :=ManagementObjectSearcher.Create('root\cimv2','SELECT * FROM Win32_BaseBoard');

3) retrieve the data using the ManagementObjectCollection object.

4) get a enumerator to iterate over the data returned using a ManagementObjectEnumerator

    Collection:=Searcher.Get();//Get the data
    iter:=Collection.GetEnumerator;//create  a enumerator
    while(iter.MoveNext()) do//iterate over the enumerator

5) and finally to access to the value of an particular property we must use a ManagementObject object in this way

      WmiObject:=ManagementObject(iter.Current); //get the current element
      SerialNumber:=WmiObject['SerialNumber'];

This is the full source code to access the wmi from Delphi .Net from a console application

program WmiDelphi.Net;
{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}
uses
  System.Management,
  SysUtils;

procedure  GetWin32_BaseBoardInfo;
var
Searcher   : ManagementObjectSearcher ;
Collection : ManagementObjectCollection;
iter       : ManagementObjectCollection.ManagementObjectEnumerator;
WmiObject  : ManagementObject;
begin
  try
    Searcher  :=ManagementObjectSearcher.Create('SELECT * FROM Win32_BaseBoard'); //make the WMi query
    Collection:=Searcher.Get();//Get the data
    iter:=Collection.GetEnumerator;//create  a enumerator
    while(iter.MoveNext()) do//iterate over the enumerator
    begin
      WmiObject:=ManagementObject(iter.Current); //get the current element
         Writeln(Format('Caption                 %s',[WmiObject['Caption']]));
         Writeln(Format('ConfigOptions           %s',[WmiObject['ConfigOptions']]));
         Writeln(Format('CreationClassName       %s',[WmiObject['CreationClassName']]));
         Writeln(Format('Depth                   %s',[WmiObject['Depth']]));
         Writeln(Format('Description             %s',[WmiObject['Description']]));
         Writeln(Format('Height                  %s',[WmiObject['Height']]));
         Writeln(Format('HostingBoard            %s',[WmiObject['HostingBoard']]));
         Writeln(Format('HotSwappable            %s',[WmiObject['HotSwappable']]));
         Writeln(Format('InstallDate             %s',[WmiObject['InstallDate']]));
         Writeln(Format('Manufacturer            %s',[WmiObject['Manufacturer']]));
         Writeln(Format('Model                   %s',[WmiObject['Model']]));
         Writeln(Format('Name                    %s',[WmiObject['Name']]));
         Writeln(Format('OtherIdentifyingInfo    %s',[WmiObject['OtherIdentifyingInfo']]));
         Writeln(Format('PartNumber              %s',[WmiObject['PartNumber']]));
         Writeln(Format('PoweredOn               %s',[WmiObject['PoweredOn']]));
         Writeln(Format('Product                 %s',[WmiObject['Product']]));
         Writeln(Format('Removable               %s',[WmiObject['Removable']]));
         Writeln(Format('Replaceable             %s',[WmiObject['Replaceable']]));
         Writeln(Format('RequirementsDescription %s',[WmiObject['RequirementsDescription']]));
         Writeln(Format('RequiresDaughterBoard   %s',[WmiObject['RequiresDaughterBoard']]));
         Writeln(Format('SerialNumber            %s',[WmiObject['SerialNumber']]));
         Writeln(Format('SKU                     %s',[WmiObject['SKU']]));
         Writeln(Format('SlotLayout              %s',[WmiObject['SlotLayout']]));
         Writeln(Format('SpecialRequirements     %s',[WmiObject['SpecialRequirements']]));
         Writeln(Format('Status                  %s',[WmiObject['Status']]));
         Writeln(Format('Tag                     %s',[WmiObject['Tag']]));
         Writeln(Format('Version                 %s',[WmiObject['Version']]));
         Writeln(Format('Weight                  %s',[WmiObject['Weight']]));
         Writeln(Format('Width                   %s',[WmiObject['Width']]));
    end;
    Readln;
  except
    on E:Exception do
      Writeln(E.Classname, ': ', E.Message);
  end;
end;

begin
  try
    GetWin32_BaseBoardInfo;
    Readln;
  except
    on E:Exception do
      Writeln(E.Classname, ': ', E.Message);
  end;
end.

Using Delphi Prism

By far using .Net and delphi prism must be the easy way to access the WMI, because you don’t need to implement enumerators or helper functions to avoid nulls. therefore exists many resources of the WMI and .Net in the MSDN site.

1) to access the WMI from .Net you add the System.Management namespace which give you full access to the WMI.

2) Now using the ManagementObjectSearcher class in a single step you can establish a connection to the wmi service and make a WQL query.

Searcher := new ManagementObjectSearcher('root\cimv2','select * from Win32_BaseBoard');

3) for iterate over the WMI data you can use the great features of dephi-prism, how create a local variable in a for loop

for WmiObject : ManagementObject  in searcher.Get() do //in this single line you are creating a WmiObject to get access to the properties,and searcher.Get() return a enumerator that iterates through the ManagementObjectCollection.

Finally the Source code of a Delphi Prism console application to access the WMI.

namespace WmiDelphiPrism;

interface
uses
System,
System.Management,
System.Text;

type
    ConsoleApp = class
    private
        class method GetWin32_BaseBoardInfo;
    public
        class method Main;
    end;

implementation

class method ConsoleApp.Main;
begin
 try
    GetWin32_BaseBoardInfo;
    Console.Read();
 except on E: Exception do
  Console.WriteLine(E.ToString()+' Trace '+E.StackTrace );
 end;
end;

class method ConsoleApp.GetWin32_BaseBoardInfo;
var
Searcher : ManagementObjectSearcher;
begin
     Searcher := new ManagementObjectSearcher('root\cimv2','select * from Win32_BaseBoard');
        for WmiObject : ManagementObject  in searcher.Get() do
        begin
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','Caption',WmiObject['Caption']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','ConfigOptions',WmiObject['ConfigOptions']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','CreationClassName',WmiObject['CreationClassName']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','Depth',WmiObject['Depth']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','Description',WmiObject['Description']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','Height',WmiObject['Height']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','HostingBoard',WmiObject['HostingBoard']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','HotSwappable',WmiObject['HotSwappable']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','InstallDate',WmiObject['InstallDate']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','Manufacturer',WmiObject['Manufacturer']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','Model',WmiObject['Model']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','Name',WmiObject['Name']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','OtherIdentifyingInfo',WmiObject['OtherIdentifyingInfo']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','PartNumber',WmiObject['PartNumber']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','PoweredOn',WmiObject['PoweredOn']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','Product',WmiObject['Product']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','Removable',WmiObject['Removable']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','Replaceable',WmiObject['Replaceable']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','RequirementsDescription',WmiObject['RequirementsDescription']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','RequiresDaughterBoard',WmiObject['RequiresDaughterBoard']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','SerialNumber',WmiObject['SerialNumber']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','SKU',WmiObject['SKU']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','SlotLayout',WmiObject['SlotLayout']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','SpecialRequirements',WmiObject['SpecialRequirements']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','Status',WmiObject['Status']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','Tag',WmiObject['Tag']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','Version',WmiObject['Version']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','Weight',WmiObject['Weight']);
             Console.WriteLine('{0,-35} {1,-40}','Width',WmiObject['Width']);
        end;
end;
end.

Using Lazarus

The code necessary to access the WMI from Free-pascal using lazarus is very similar to the used in the Delphi win32 Late-binding., so i will show the differences only because the general idea is the same.

1) you must add the Windows unit to the uses clause because this unit contan the PULONG type which is required in some functions.

2) you don’t need call CoInitialize and CoUninitialize functions because both are initializated by the comobj unit

3) the helper function GetWMIObject must be modified to fit with the new types of parameteres required by the MkParseDisplayName function.

which is declarated like this (see the _para3 param which is of PULONG (^cardinal) type)

 function MkParseDisplayName(_para1:IBindCtx; _para2:POLESTR; out _para3:PULONG; out _para4:IMoniker):HRESULT;stdcall; external  'ole32.dll' name 'MkParseDisplayName';

and the modified helper function now look like this.

function GetWMIObject(const objectName: String): IDispatch; //create the Wmi instance
var
  chEaten: PULONG;
  BindCtx: IBindCtx;
  Moniker: IMoniker;
begin
  OleCheck(CreateBindCtx(0, bindCtx));
  OleCheck(MkParseDisplayName(BindCtx, StringToOleStr(objectName), chEaten, Moniker));
  OleCheck(Moniker.BindToObject(BindCtx, nil, IDispatch, Result));
end;

4) the function IEnumVARIANT.Next requires a Variant param

Function  Next(celt: ULONG; OUT rgVar: VARIANT;  pCeltFetched: pULONG=nil):HResult;StdCall;

so you must use it in this way

var
colItem : Variant;
//
//
//
while oEnum.Next(1, colItem, nil) = 0 do

5) finally if you wanna use the format function, you must aware which has some problems with variant values. so you must rewrite the code to show the info in this way.

    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.Caption); //SDummy is a string
    Writeln(Format('Caption                  %s',[SDummy]));

Lazarus source code of console aplication to access the WMI

program WmiLazarus_LateBinding;

{$mode objfpc}

uses
   SysUtils,
   Variants,
   comobj,//required for the OleCheck and CoInitialize functions
   ActiveX,
   Windows;//required for the PULONG type

function VarArrayToStr(const vArray: variant): string;

    function _VarToStr(const V: variant): string;
    var
    Vt: integer;
    begin
    Vt := VarType(V);
        case Vt of
          varSmallint,
          varInteger  : Result := IntToStr(integer(V));
          varSingle,
          varDouble,
          varCurrency : Result := FloatToStr(Double(V));
          varDate     : Result := VarToStr(V);
          varOleStr   : Result := WideString(V);
          varBoolean  : Result := VarToStr(V);
          varVariant  : Result := VarToStr(Variant(V));
          varByte     : Result := char(byte(V));
          varString   : Result := String(V);
          varArray    : Result := VarArrayToStr(Variant(V));
        end;
    end;

var
i : integer;
begin
    Result := '[';
     if (VarType(vArray) and VarArray)=0 then
       Result := _VarToStr(vArray)
    else
    for i := VarArrayLowBound(vArray, 1) to VarArrayHighBound(vArray, 1) do
     if i=VarArrayLowBound(vArray, 1)  then
      Result := Result+_VarToStr(vArray[i])
     else
      Result := Result+'|'+_VarToStr(vArray[i]);

    Result:=Result+']';
end;

function VarStrNull(const V:OleVariant):string; //avoid problems with null strings
begin
  Result:='';
  if not VarIsNull(V) then
  begin
    if VarIsArray(V) then
       Result:=VarArrayToStr(V)
    else
    Result:=VarToStr(V);
  end;
end;

function GetWMIObject(const objectName: String): IDispatch; //create the Wmi instance
var
  chEaten: PULONG;
  BindCtx: IBindCtx;
  Moniker: IMoniker;
begin
  OleCheck(CreateBindCtx(0, bindCtx));
  OleCheck(MkParseDisplayName(BindCtx, StringToOleStr(objectName), chEaten, Moniker));
  OleCheck(Moniker.BindToObject(BindCtx, nil, IDispatch, Result));
end;

//The Win32_BaseBoard class represents a base board (also known as a motherboard
//or system board).

procedure  GetWin32_BaseBoardInfo;
var
  objWMIService : OleVariant;
  colItems      : OleVariant;
  colItem       : Variant;
  oEnum         : IEnumvariant;
  SDummy        : string;
begin;
  objWMIService := GetWMIObject('winmgmts:\\localhost\root\CIMV2');
  colItems      := objWMIService.ExecQuery('SELECT * FROM Win32_BaseBoard','WQL',0);
  oEnum         := IUnknown(colItems._NewEnum) as IEnumVariant;
  while oEnum.Next(1, colItem, nil) = 0 do
  begin
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.Caption);
    Writeln(Format('Caption                  %s',[SDummy]));// String
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.ConfigOptions);
    Writeln(Format('ConfigOptions            %s',[SDummy]));// String
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.CreationClassName);
    Writeln(Format('CreationClassName        %s',[SDummy]));// String
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.Depth);
    Writeln(Format('Depth                    %s',[SDummy]));// Real32
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.Description);
    Writeln(Format('Description              %s',[SDummy]));// String
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.Height);
    Writeln(Format('Height                   %s',[SDummy]));// Real32
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.HostingBoard);
    Writeln(Format('HostingBoard             %s',[SDummy]));// Boolean
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.HotSwappable);
    Writeln(Format('HotSwappable             %s',[SDummy]));// Boolean
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.InstallDate);
    Writeln(Format('InstallDate              %s',[SDummy]));// Datetime
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.Manufacturer);
    Writeln(Format('Manufacturer             %s',[SDummy]));// String
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.Model);
    Writeln(Format('Model                    %s',[SDummy]));// String
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.Name);
    Writeln(Format('Name                     %s',[SDummy]));// String
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.OtherIdentifyingInfo);
    Writeln(Format('OtherIdentifyingInfo     %s',[SDummy]));// String
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.PartNumber);
    Writeln(Format('PartNumber               %s',[SDummy]));// String
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.PoweredOn);
    Writeln(Format('PoweredOn                %s',[SDummy]));// Boolean
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.Product);
    Writeln(Format('Product                  %s',[SDummy]));// String
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.Removable);
    Writeln(Format('Removable                %s',[SDummy]));// Boolean
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.Replaceable);
    Writeln(Format('Replaceable              %s',[SDummy]));// Boolean
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.RequirementsDescription);
    Writeln(Format('RequirementsDescription  %s',[SDummy]));// String
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.RequiresDaughterBoard);
    Writeln(Format('RequiresDaughterBoard    %s',[SDummy]));// Boolean
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.SerialNumber);
    Writeln(Format('SerialNumber             %s',[SDummy]));// String
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.SKU);
    Writeln(Format('SKU                      %s',[SDummy]));// String
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.SlotLayout);
    Writeln(Format('SlotLayout               %s',[SDummy]));// String
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.SpecialRequirements);
    Writeln(Format('SpecialRequirements      %s',[SDummy]));// Boolean
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.Status);
    Writeln(Format('Status                   %s',[SDummy]));// String
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.Tag);
    Writeln(Format('Tag                      %s',[SDummy]));// String
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.Version);
    Writeln(Format('Version                  %s',[SDummy]));// String
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.Weight);
    Writeln(Format('Weight                   %s',[SDummy]));// Real32
    SDummy:=VarStrNull(colItem.Width);
    Writeln(Format('Width                    %s',[SDummy]));// Real32
  end;

end;

begin
 try
   //CoInitialize(nil);   you don't need call this because is initializated by the comobj unit
    try
      GetWin32_BaseBoardInfo;
      Readln;
    finally
    //CoUninitialize;
    end;
 except
    on E:Exception do
    begin
        Writeln(E.Classname, ':', E.Message);
        Readln;
    end;
  end;
end.

So now you don’t have excuses to don’t use the WMI for pascal code. And remember which you have the WMI Delphi Code creator to help you.;)