Lazarus Support

Lazarus is the open source IDE for the FreePascal compiler, which can use many Delphi components. Below is the official description from the Free Pascal Lazarus Project:

Lazarus is the class libraries for Free Pascal that emulate Delphi. Free Pascal is a GPL'ed compiler that runs on Linux, Win32, OS/2, 68K and more. Free Pascal is designed to be able to understand and compile Delphi syntax, which is of course OOP. Lazarus is the part of the missing puzzle that will allow you to develop Delphi like programs in all of the above platforms. Unlike Java which strives to be a write once run anywhere, Lazarus and Free Pascal strives for write once compile anywhere. Since the exact same compiler is available on all of the above platforms it means you don't need to do any recoding to produce identical products for different platforms.

With the release of Advantage 10.1 support for Lazarus has been added to the Advantage Delphi Components. You will need to have Lazarus version 0.9.28.2 or later to use the components. The Lazarus components are not installed by default so you must choose a Custom Install and make sure you select the Lazarus Free Pascal option.

The TDataSet installer will not automatically add the Advantage components to Lazarus you must follow these steps to use the Advantage Components.

1. Open the Lazarus IDE.
2. Click on "Package", then "Open Package File (.lpk) ..." and browse to the adsl.lpk file in the TDataSet installation directory.
3. In the package window (shown below), click the "Compile" button.
4. When compilation is complete, click the "Install" button.  When asked if you wish to rebuild Lazarus, select "Yes".
5. Lazarus should build a new version of the Lazarus executable and automatically start the new version of the executable.
6. The component palette should now contain the Advantage tab.
7. The Advantage components can now be used in Lazarus to access Advantage data from your application.

Once the components have been installed they can be used in an application. The components work just like they do in Delphi and are very easy to configure. Lazarus includes many of the same components as Delphi. Below is a screenshot of a simple application which displays the contents of the Customer.adt table from the example data supplied with the Advantage Delphi Components.

For additional information about using Advantage with Lazarus refer to the Advantage Help File or the Lazarus and Advantage Database Server entry in the Lazarus Wiki.