Note that this answer only lists new language features
not new VCL/FMX features.
Here are the links to the RAD Studio docwiki:
- What’s new in Rad Studio 10.4 Sydney
- What’s new in Rad Studio 10.3 Rio
- What’s new in Delphi and C++Builder 10.2 Tokyo
- What’s new in Delphi and C++Builder 10.1 Berlin
- What’s new in Delphi and C++Builder 10 Seattle
- What’s new in Delphi and C++Builder XE8
- What’s New in Delphi and C++Builder XE7
- What’s New in Delphi and C++Builder XE6
- What’s New in Delphi and C++Builder XE5
- What’s New in Delphi and C++Builder XE4
- What’s New in Delphi and C++Builder XE3
- What’s New in Delphi and C++Builder XE2
- What’s New in Delphi and C++Builder XE
- What’s New in Delphi and C++Builder 2010
- What’s New in Delphi and C++Builder 2009
- What’s New in RAD Studio (Delphi for Win32 2007)
- What’s New in RAD Studio (C++Builder 2007)
- What’s New in Delphi 2006
- What’s New in Delphi 2005
- What’s New in Delphi 7
- What’s New in Delphi 6
- What’s New in Delphi 5
- What’s New in Delphi 4
- What’s New in Delphi 3
- What’s New in Delphi 2
- Delphi 1 Features
The full list from Embarcadero: What’s New
See also: David I’s list
To summarize:
- Unified memory management on all platforms – full ARC compiler has been removed and all compilers now use manual (classic) memory management for objects
- Custom managed records
- Support for macOS 64-bit
- Support for Android 64-bit
- The 64-bit Linux compiler no longer uses ARC, it instead uses the default manual managed, which is the same as in the Windows compiler. This makes porting code from Windows or OSX to Linux much easier.
- Inline variables with automatic type inference
- 8 bit AnsiChar/AnsiString support in enabled on Linux.
- C++Builder and Delphi now use the same ABI for all calls.
- Support for Linux server apps (Intel 64-bit using LLVM and ARC).
- Assigning a dynamic arrays to a pointer using the
@
operator is only allowed when hard-casting the array. - More flexible namespace resolution of unit names
- Native support for Utf8String and RawByteString type on all platforms
- The
[weak]
,[unsafe]
and[volatile]
attributes are supported on all compilers. - The size of extended on OSX is now 16 bytes.
- class and record helpers cannot access private members of the classes or records they extend.
- Support for Android up to 6.01.
- Support for Android 5.1.1 and iOS 8.4
- Improved OSX exception handling
- Support for 64-bit iOS;
- New integer types: FixedInt, FixedUInt 32-bit integer types on all platforms;
- New platform dependent integer types: LongInt, LongWord (64-bits on iOS-64, 32-bits on all other platforms);
-
New compiler intrinsic routines (undocumented):
function IsManagedType(T: TypeIdentifier): Boolean; function HasWeakRef(T: TypeIdentifier): Boolean; function GetTypeKind(T: TypeIdentifier): TTypeKind; function IsConstValue(Value): boolean;
- Android Support;
needs device with ArmV6 + Neon or ArmV7 for deployment
introduces conditional define ANDROID - Operator overloading for classes (but only for the NextGen compiler {Android/iOS})
-
The following new conditionals are introduced/enabled in XE4:
AUTOREFCOUNT
CPUARM
EXTERNAL_LINKER
IOS
NEXTGEN
UNDERSCOREIMPORTNAME
WEAKREF
WEAKINSTREF
WEAKINTREF -
Reintroduced support for iOS.
-
New
dependency
directive for specifying the dependencies of an external library (undocumented until XE8). -
ARC support in NextGen compilers (including TObject.DisposeOf).
Note that much of the groundwork for ARC was already in XE3, but much of it was disabled -
Before the XE4 release,
$IF
statements could only be terminated with$IFEND
, and the$IFDEF
,$IFNDEF
,$IFOPT
directives could only be terminated with$ENDIF
.
At XE4, this changed so that $ENDIF became an accepted terminator for $IF, $IFDEF, $IFNDEF, and $IFOPT.
- Record helpers for built-in types
- Removed support for iOS.
- Atomic intrinsic functions:
AtomicExchange()
,AtomicIncrement()
,AtomicCmpExchange()
,AtomicDecrement()
- Introduction of the [ref] attribute.
-
Cross platform support for Mac OSX (32-bit) and iOS;
-
Support for Win64;
-
Modified RTL to support cross platform;
-
Packed
Now Forces Byte Alignment of Records (Pre XE2 it did not necessarily do this) -
Eight new DEFINEs have been added:
ALIGN_STACK
CPUX86
CPUX64
MACOS (Mac operating system)
MACOS32
PC_MAPPED_EXCEPTIONS
PIC
WIN64 -
{$ExcessPrecision on/off}
compiler directive (x64 only) -
The build-in types differ depending on the target platform (32/64-bit)
- Extended Data Type Is 10 bytes on Win32, but 8 (!) bytes on Win64
- The
{$STRINGCHECKS}
compiler directive is ignored in XE; - New 16-byte value for the
{$ALIGN}
directive:
The acceptable values for the{$ALIGN}
directive now include 1, 2, 4, 8, and 16. - new
{$CODEALIGN}
directive, this sets the starting address for a procedure or function. - The
{$STRONGLINKTYPES ON}
directive - Support for regular expressions.
- Enhanced Delphi RTTI (Run Time Type Information).
- Attributes
- The
as
operator can be used to cast an interface reference back to the object from which it was extracted. - The
is
operator can be used to verify whether an interface reference was extracted from a certain class. - Normal unsafe casting can be performed on an interface:
TObject(SomeInterface)
. - new
delayed
directive indicates that an external library such as a DLL is not to be loaded at declaration time but is to wait until the first call to the method - Class Constructor/Destructor
- Intrinsic type
string
now maps toUnicodeString
; {$HighCharUnicode on|off}
compiler directive- Generics;
function Default(T): T
intrinsic function (Undocumented)- Smart pointers;
- Anonymous methods;
- Support for nested exceptions and exception tracing;
- support for pointermath and a new compiler directive:
{$PointerMath on|off}
; - Four new compiler warnings:
W1057 Implicit string cast from '%s' to '%s'
,W1058 Implicit string cast with potential data loss from '%s' to '%s'
,W1059 Explicit string cast from '%s' to '%s'
,W1060 Explicit string cast with potential data loss from '%s' to '%s'
;
- The
Exit
function can take a parameter specifying a result; resourcestrings
as Widestrings;TObject
has a extra hidden pointer toTMonitor
in addition to its VMT pointer;- the
deprecated
keyword can now have additional text
- No language changes that I know of;
Note that Delphi 2007 is a non-breaking release, DCU’s from D2006 will work unchanged in D2007; - (The .NET ‘personality’ of 2007 introduced generics)
- Enhanced records;
- operator overloading;
static
methods and properties;- class helpers;
- FastMM is the default memory manager;
strict
private/protected visibility keyword;final
keyword for virtual methods;{$METHODINFO}
directive;
for ... in
loops,inline
keyword- Wildcard in uses statement allowed
- nested types
- nested constants
{$REGION}
/{$ENDREGION}
directives
- three additional compiler warnings:
- Unsafe_Type,
- Unsafe_Code, and
- Unsafe_Cast. These warnings are disabled by default, but can be enabled
- new compiler directive
{$WARN UNSAFE_CODE ON}
- Overloads of routines that format and parse numbers, date-time values, and currency using a
TFormatSettings
structure.
[TCustomVariantType][68]
provides operator overloading for custom variant types- New compiler directives:
{$IFDEF MSWINDOWS}
{$IFDEF LINUX}
{$LIBPREFIX}
{$LIBSUFFIX}
{$LIBVERSION}
{$MESSAGE 'message'}
{$SetPEFlags}
- Support for
{$IF}{$ELSE}
compiler directives - Compiler hinting directives:
experimental
,deprecated
,library
,platform
(but without additional text for deprecated) - Variant is no longer based on COM but changed to be CLX compatible, COM based variant renamed to
OLEVariant
- Typed constants cannot be assigned to (Override with
{$J+}
) - Enumerated types can be assigned an explicit value (cf C++);
- Interface properties
- Support for calling
varargs
external functions (but only for thecdecl
calling convention) - custom variants
No new language features, but:
- Dynamic arrays
LongWord
andInt64
;Cardinal
is an UINT32 (before it was unsigned 31-bit value)Real
takes 8 bytes and is the same asdouble
(previously it was 6 bytes);- Override with the new
{$REALCOMPATIBILITY ON}
compiler directive; REAL48
replaces the old 6-bytereal
;
- Override with the new
- Support for
resourcestrings
- Method overloading
- Default parameters
{$EXTERNALSYM}
and{$NODEFINE}
directivesimplements
keyword for properties
- Wordbool, longbool and bytebool store
true
as-1
instead of 1 (Boolean is unchanged) - Components must be installed using
packages
. - Assertions.
out
parameters.Widestring
interface
anddispinterface
keyword and COM (dispid
) support.
- Support for 32-bit;
Ansistring
replacesshortstring
as the default string typeCurrency
Variant
(for interop with OLE automation).- Threading support and
ThreadVar
keyword. - 4 byte data is 4 byte aligned new
packed
keyword overrides this behavior; - TDateTime starts at
1899/12/30
under D1 it started at0000/00/00
- new
finalization
keyword register
andstdcall
calling conventions added.packed
keyword.