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Before I begin, I would like to point out that I have honestly and genuinely searched repeatedly and exhaustively via Google for such a thing, and been unable to find one.

I require (for a project I'm developing) a list of all Delphi (2007 to the very latest released version, I no longer support any version older than 2007) "Language Features", and the versions in which they were introduced and (where applicable) deprecated, improved or removed.

I have noted similar questions to this on Stack Overflow before, though most of those were phrased in the form of "which feature is best", and closed as deemed unsuitable.

If anyone knows of such a list (or has enough spare time to compile one), I would be very grateful.

The accepted answer will either contain a link to such a list, or the list itself.

Q: So why exactly do you need such a list? Q: Are you trying to create one code set (perhaps a component or library) that supports all platforms between BDS2007 and XE2 (i.e. uses no features newer than BDS2007)? Q: If so, why not just try compiling on 2007 and see what breaks? (PS: I'm still happily using BDS2006 ;)). – paulsm4 Dec 10, 2011 at 22:03 Simon check this question Assorted list of what's new in Delphi Language, RTL, VCL? , Also on my blog I mantain a updated List of changes between versions of Delphi – RRUZ Dec 10, 2011 at 22:05 @paulsm4 1) So I can account for feature limitations across versions in public libraries, 2) Yes (but not a Component Library necessarily), 3) Because it's easier to know in advance than constantly test on different versions every individual aspect of a library. Theoretically D2006 would work fine, but I'm not going to support it actively (no offense). – LaKraven Dec 11, 2011 at 2:49

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 11 Alexandria

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
See also: Delphi Master Release List wiki

To summarize:

Delphi 11

Binary Literals and Digit Separators

Inline assembler support for AVX instructions (AVX-512)

New record helpers: TDateTimeHelper and TCurrencyHelper

macOS ARM 64-bit target platform

Delphi 10.4

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

Delphi 10.3

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.

Delphi 10.2 Tokyo

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

Delphi 10.1 Berlin

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.

Delphi 10 Seattle

Support for Android 5.1.1 and iOS 8.4

Improved OSX exception handling

Delphi XE8

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);

Delphi XE7

String-Like Operations Supported on Dynamic Arrays

Parallel Library added to the RTL

New compiler intrinsic routines (undocumented):

function IsManagedType(T: TypeIdentifier): Boolean; function HasWeakRef(T: TypeIdentifier): Boolean; function GetTypeKind(T: TypeIdentifier): TTypeKind; function IsConstValue(Value): boolean;

Delphi XE6

Delphi XE5

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})

Delphi XE4

The following new conditionals are introduced/enabled in XE4:
AUTOREFCOUNT
CPUARM
EXTERNAL_LINKER
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.

Delphi XE3

Record helpers for built-in types

Removed support for iOS.

Atomic intrinsic functions:
AtomicExchange() , AtomicIncrement() , AtomicCmpExchange() , AtomicDecrement()

Introduction of the [ref] attribute .

Delphi XE2

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
WIN64

Full unit scope names are now required in your uses clause.

{$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

Delphi XE

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.

Delphi 2010

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

Delphi 2009

Intrinsic type string now maps to UnicodeString ;

{$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 to TMonitor in addition to its VMT pointer;

the deprecated keyword can now have additional text

Delphi 2007

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 )

Delphi 2006

Enhanced records ;

operator overloading ;

static methods and properties;

FastMM is the default memory manager;

strict private/protected visibility keyword ;

final keyword for virtual methods;

{$METHODINFO} directive;

Delphi 2005

for ... in loops,

inline keyword

Wildcard in uses statement allowed

nested types

nested constants

{$REGION} / {$ENDREGION} directives

class helpers (added in Delphi 8 for .net);

Delphi 7

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.

Delphi 6

[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 the cdecl calling convention)

custom variants

Delphi 5

No new language features, but:

Support added for Frames

Delphi 4

Dynamic arrays

LongWord and Int64 ; Cardinal is an UINT32 (before it was unsigned 31-bit value)

Real takes 8 bytes and is the same as double (previously it was 6 bytes);

Override with the new {$REALCOMPATIBILITY ON} compiler directive;

REAL48 replaces the old 6-byte real ;

Support for resourcestrings

Method overloading

Default parameters

{$EXTERNALSYM} and {$NODEFINE} directives

implements keyword for properties

Delphi 3

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 and dispinterface keyword and COM ( dispid ) support.

Delphi 2

Support for 32-bit;

Ansistring replaces shortstring as the default string type

Currency

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 at 0000/00/00

new finalization keyword

register and stdcall calling conventions added.

packed keyword.

Ah wonderful! I couldn't find a way to get the Docwiki to show me pages specific to older versions of Delphi (pre XE2)... no idea why! This is wonderful, and has been marked as the correct answer! Thanks! – LaKraven Dec 10, 2011 at 21:59 @DavidHeffernan It is useful to have the features new in 2007 since this sets the baseline... in a sense, I will know with certainty whether a portion of what I'm producing could perhaps work in earlier versions (even if I myself have no intention to support it) – LaKraven Dec 10, 2011 at 22:06 This is not accurate. $LIBPREFIX et al directives are there at least since D7 (I suspect D6, since they are Kylix related) – Free Consulting Mar 23, 2015 at 0:43

The jedi.inc file used by the Dephi JEDI project exposes a series of feature defines. If your project is MPL-compatible, you could even use it for feature detection and save yourself the trouble of reinventing that particular wheel.

For example, it defines SUPPORTS_FOR_IN if the compiler supports enumerators. One could wrap your enumerator code in an IFDEF checking for that define rather than checking for a particular compiler version.

Yes, this include is certainly helpful, but it lacks the completeness of a detailed list (hence this question). Thanks for the suggestion... consider the accepted answer to this question to be an enhancement on the information provided by jedi.inc :) – LaKraven Dec 12, 2011 at 19:10 @LaKraven: True, there's a lot of things it doesn't get, but for some it may be enough. It also has the advantage of being already done. :-) Personally, I think that flattening the VCL hierarchies, stripping the copyright headers, and tossing them all into a version control repository might be handy too. That way you can see when particular RTL/VCL features were implemented. – afrazier Dec 12, 2011 at 19:30 @LaKraven, I believe what jedi.inc at least accurate, while Johan's list needs some verifications. – Free Consulting Mar 23, 2015 at 0:51

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