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Delete

procedure Delete(var S: String; iFrom, iCount: LongInt);

Example​

procedure ScriptEvent(var Value: variant);
var
  Text: string;
begin
  Text := 'AB---CD';
  Delete(Text, 3, 3);
  Value := Text; // ABCD
end;

Usage​

Delete removes a one-based range of characters from a mutable string and shifts the remaining suffix left.

Parameters

NameModeDescription
Svar/in-outAssignable string variable to change. A literal or calculated expression cannot be supplied.
iFrominputOne-based position of the first character to remove.
iCountinputMaximum number of characters to remove.

There is no return value.

Boundary behaviour

  • iFrom < 1 or iFrom > Length(S) leaves S unchanged.
  • iCount <= 0 leaves S unchanged.
  • A count extending past the end removes the complete suffix from iFrom.
  • Deleting the complete valid range produces an empty string.
  • Empty input remains empty.

String positions are code-unit positions. Deleting one half of a UTF-16 surrogate pair or part of a multibyte ANSI character can produce invalid text; determine boundaries using the same encoding model as the actual string.

Additional Technical Info​

Delete mutates a string variable by removing iCount characters beginning at the one-based position iFrom. Later characters shift left and the string length decreases.

The example is fictional and source-reviewed only.

PascalScript dispatch and side effects

This is modified PascalScript standard-procedure selector 5. The handler dispatches to Delphi Delete for ANSI, WideString and UnicodeString actual values. It does not convert other value types. The caller's variable is written back in place; use Copy when the original must be preserved.

No Velox map state, logging or transaction state is changed. An alias to the same string variable observes the normal PascalScript/Delphi string assignment semantics, including copy-on-write for managed strings.

External references

Created 2026-07-15