CODEWITHSUNDEEP
formsdelphidelphi-7
Thomas R.
Thomas R.

Reputation: 77

How to remove a form from a unit while keeping the unit in the project?

I use Delphi 7 and I encountered a very annoying thing. One of my projects has gone quite large and a form I used in one of the units became obsolete. I decided to get rid of it. It seems I can't. The IDE always asks for .dfm file, no matter what i tried (and I think i was very thorough).

Here's what I did:

First, I used the IDE's Remove from Project to remove the whole thing from the project. Then I commented out all sections that used anything in that unit and compiled, bulit and ran the project. It went without any errors or warnings. I saved all files and closed the Delphi IDE, started up a Notepad and removed the form's declaration from the unit, then deleted every associated file, except the .pas (with this, it became like any other regular unit).

Then I searched every file in the project's folder with Total Commander to see if any of them contained the name of the removed unit. None did. I started Delphi and loaded the project. With this I felt satisfied and added the unit's name to the uses list and pressed Compile.

IT STILL LOOKS FOR THE DAMNED DFM!!

If someone knows, please explain this to me. What did I miss?

Upvotes: 2

Views: 3090

Answers (1)

David Heffernan
David Heffernan

Reputation: 612844

If the compiler is looking for the .dfm file it will be because the compiler is including a unit that contains this:

{$R *.dfm}

That is what tells the compiler to link the .dfm file with the same name as the unit.

It seems likely that you still refer to the unit somewhere in your project. The compiler must be finding either a .pas file or a compiled .dcu file for your unit. Search for all files named <UnitName>.pas and <UnitName>.dcu. Remove these files. Then you will encounter compiler errors whenever you have code that attempts to use those units. Deal with those by removing the unit from the uses clause that names it. Then you should be done.

Upvotes: 4

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