Where can I find a list over third party unit/component name prefixes

Question

Most third party component vendors uses a spesific prefix for their own unit names and component names.

Can I find any overview over these prefixes anywhere?

Eg

gtUnitname = Gnostice
frxUnitname = FastReport
cxUnitName = Developer Express

Two reasons
1) Need to find the vendor of a unit
2) Want to use a unique prefix in own components

Colonial

Which vendors are you interested in? – Rotarian

This caused by classes and units registration system used with packages. There is no common registry. – Ung

First, this notion is now dated, and in fact, obsoleted, in 2007,2009,2010, XE, and XE2, by the new style supported by all recent versions; CompanyName.ProductSuitePrefix.MyUnitName. Note that XE2 adds additional namespace support and starts the transition on the System/VCL/RTL unit names, but that your unit names since 2007 can easily contain multiple dotted sub-sections, just like in .Net. – Reiko

The DPR moved to delphiprefixregistry.net where I have seen it some weeks ago, but now the domain no longer exists. – Okeechobee

@David. It's not any particular vendor at this moment. But I sometimes run into projects with poor documentation of the dev.tools. Naturally, when this project is revised, unknown unit names (and components) show up. I usually google the unit name/component name and manage to figure out which package the developer has used. On each such search I ask myself if there is any common website or wiki that contains an overview. – Gytle

BTW, one of my resent searches was for the unit trControl with the component TTREngine. This is an up to date third party package, but not very searchable. Can you fint it without peeking? Answer: bit.ly/rLNWvv – Gytle

@Premature. It may be the the package registration system that require(d) this naming convention, but I must admit that I like to prefix many identifiers regardless of the requirement. Utility functions for example. – Gytle

@Warren. AFAICT, most third party vendors has not embraced this new namespace convention yet? I work in D2010 (and a litle bit XE and XE2), and I can't say that the prefix-convention is gone. Nonetheless, the compoent names will still use the prefixes, and I'm sure that you all have seen some code snippet (event here at SO) that contains a referense to an unfamiliar component. – Gytle

I'm just saying that there's not much point emulating something that is no longer necessary. Namespace conventions obliterate the need to do your own "hungarian notation for unit names". Use them because they make your code more readable, and your dependencies more obvious. – Reiko

@Jørn E. Angeltveit, not a "may be", its how packages and component streaming maintains its intergrity :-) For other symbols (eg. functions) there is no such restriction. Disadvantage: proprietary libraries are changing publishers oftenly, so analogue of famous DLL hell is still possible. – Ung

@Warren P, it is not really a hungarian. BTW, utilizing namespaces will create lock-in. – Ung

I think that even Delphi 7 can support dotted namespace notation. So yeah, those folks who still use Delphi 6 are SOL. Like I said, this notion is now dated. – Reiko

@WarrenP: Yes, Delphi 7 supported it as a preparation for moving to dotNET but there were a few bugs. these bugs were not related to unit names though, so it would be possible to get rid of the unit name prefixes if you only support Delphi 7 and up. – Spongy

Answer 1

Since DPR is abandoned, and no other list seems to exist, I created a new one at http://delphi.wikia.com/wiki/Delphi_Wiki

I just added some of the components I currently use and some of the prefixes that came to my mind.

The Wayback Machine couldn't show the dpr site, so I didn't manage to copy these.

---

If you have any prefixes you would like to add, please do so at:
http://delphi.wikia.com/wiki/Third_party_prefix_registry

Colonial

I not really like Delphi Wiki along with the other non-gaming wikia projects... Abyway, a word of advice - better do not segregate on license basis and add sorting to the wikitable (you might even want to have a DB table with prefix string as PK) – Ung

Answer 2

Once upon a time, there was Delphi Prefix Registry but now it's sadly defunct. (And, anyway, it never was much of a reference - most of developers just used their initials and didn't care much about the rest of the world.)

Helsell

And it works pretty well since most of us write for a very small audience; Our company, or our very small customer base (if we write components). Component vendors who stay away from Developer Express and Fast Report, Nevrona/Rave, and TMS prefixes will probably be fine. – Reiko

Thanks. Maybe we should create a new article on delphi.wikia.com/wiki/Delphi_Wiki? – Gytle

A copy of the last known version of Delphi Prefix Registry on Delphi Wikia would be nice, I agree. – Helsell

.. but searching the Internet I can't find any copy of the DPR at all :( So one should start anew. But as other have said - component prefix doesn't seems to matter much those days. – Helsell

Answer 3

As @gabr said, Delphi Prefix Registry is dead for a long time - see Internet Archive. Even in 2002 it seemed to be broken.

However, you can try to contact Steven J. Healey, who mentioned on href.com's portfolio as site author - if he still uses [email protected] e-mail, as indicated on TMultilang users comments page

Heavyladen

Thanks for the research. I miss such a list, so maybe we should create a new one at delphi.wikia.com and copy some of the DPR-list to this new article. – Gytle

Answer 4

Delphi Prefix Registry is alive at http://delphiprefix.href.com/ and that includes the data that was previously in the database at the old domain name.

Vanessa

Thank you. The links on the main page are wrong, though. Should go to delphiprefix.href.com/dpr/pgprefix... – Gytle