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1. Welcome to GNU Pascal ...

... the free 32/64-bit Pascal compiler of the GNU Compiler Collection (GNU CC or GCC). It combines a Pascal front-end with the proven GCC back-end for code generation and optimization. Other compilers in the collection currently include compilers for the Ada, C, C++, Objective C, Chill, FORTRAN, and Java languages. Unlike utilities such as p2c, this is a true compiler, not just a converter.

This version of GPC corresponds to GCC version 2.95.x.

The purpose of the GNU Pascal project is to produce a Pascal compiler (called GNU Pascal or GPC) which

Pascal was originally designed for teaching. GNU Pascal provides a smooth way to proceed to challenging programming tasks without learning a completely different language.

The current release implements Standard Pascal (ISO 7185, levels 0 and 1), a large subset of Extended Pascal (ISO 10206, aiming for full compliance), is highly compatible to Borland Pascal (version 7.0) with some Delphi extensions, and provides a lot of useful GNU extensions.

This manual contains

If you are familiar with Standard Pascal (ISO 7185) programming, you can probably just go ahead and try to compile your programs. Also, most of the ISO Extended Pascal Standard (ISO 10206) is implemented into GNU Pascal. The Extended Pascal features still missing from GPC are qualified module import, protected module export variables, set types with variable bounds, structured value initializers and expressions as subrange lower bounds.

If you are a Borland Pascal programmer, you should probably start reading the QuickStart guide from BP to GNU Pascal, see section 6. A QuickStart Guide from Borland Pascal to GNU Pascal.. If you are curious about the new features GPC offers, you can get an idea in the overview of GPC highlights (see section 2. Some of GPC's most interesting features.), and read in more detail about them in the Programmer's Guide to GPC (see section 8. The Programmer's Guide to GPC) and in the alphabetical GPC Language Reference (see section 9. The Alphabetical GPC Language Reference).

And, please, think about how you can contribute to the GNU Pascal project, too. Please support our work by contributing yours in form of example programs, bug reports, documentation, or even actual improvements of the compiler.

All trademarks used in this manual are properties of their respective owners.


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