Pascal: Get field from LPSYSTEMTIME record - winapi

Question

I'm using the Win32 api to get date and time of a file. I have a LPSYSTEMTIME structure, and I'm trying to print its wYear variable.
I've got a function (GetFileDate):
function GetFileDate : LPSYSTEMTIME
var
CheckFile: Long;
FileTime: LPFILETIME;
FileTimeReturn: LPFILETIME;
SystemTimeReturn: LPSYSTEMTIME;
begin
CheckFile := CreateFile(PChar('main.pas'), GENERIC_READ, FILE_SHARE_READ, NIL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, 0);
GetFileTime(CheckFile, FileTime, NIL, NIL);
FileTimeToLocalFileTime(FileTime, FileTimeReturn);
FileTimeToSystemTime(FileTimeReturn, SystemTimeReturn);
GetFileDate := SystemTimeReturn;
end;
But when I do this...
begin
Write(GetFileDate.wYear);
end.
It spits back
main.pas(22,20) Error: Illegal qualifier
main.pas(22,20) Fatal: Syntax error, ")" expected but "identifier WYEAR" found
Fatal: Compilation aborted
Any help on this?

Answer 1

LPSYSTEMTIME is a pointer to a SYSTEMTIME structure. Try using the ^ operator to dereference that pointer, eg:
Write(GetFileDate^.wYear);
Or:
Write(GetFileDate()^.wYear);
With that said, aside from the fact that you are not doing any error handling at all, your GetFileDate() implementation is passing the wrong parameter values to the various API functions. That code should not even compile, let alone run correctly.
Try this instead:
function GetFileDate : SYSTEMTIME;
var
CheckFile: HANDLE;
FileTime: FILETIME;
FileTimeReturn: FILETIME;
SystemTimeReturn: SYSTEMTIME;
GetFileDateResult: SYSTEMTIME;
begin
ZeroMemory(#GetFileDateResult, SizeOf(GetFileDateResult));
CheckFile := CreateFile('FullPathTo\main.pas', GENERIC_READ, FILE_SHARE_READ, NIL, OPEN_EXISTING, FILE_ATTRIBUTE_NORMAL, 0);
if CheckFile <> INVALID_HANDLE_VALUE then
begin
if GetFileTime(CheckFile, #FileTime, nil, nil) then
begin
if FileTimeToLocalFileTime(#FileTime, #FileTimeReturn) then
begin
if FileTimeToSystemTime(#FileTimeReturn, #SystemTimeReturn) then
GetFileDateResult := SystemTimeReturn;
end;
end;
CloseHandle(CheckFile);
end;
GetFileDate := GetFileDateResult;
end;
begin
Write(GetFileDate.wYear);
end.
Alternatively, I would suggest using FindFirstFile() instead of CreateFile() so you do not have to open the file just to get its date. The filesystem can supply that information, eg:
function GetFileDate : SYSTEMTIME;
var
CheckFile: HANDLE;
FindFileData: WIN32_FIND_DATA;
FileTimeReturn: FILETIME;
SystemTimeReturn: SYSTEMTIME;
GetFileDateResult: SYSTEMTIME;
begin
ZeroMemory(#GetFileDateResult, SizeOf(GetFileDateResult));
CheckFile := FindFirstFile('FullPathTo\main.pas', #FindFileData);
if CheckFile <> 0 then
begin
if FileTimeToLocalFileTime(#FindFileData.ftCreationTime, #FileTimeReturn) then
begin
if FileTimeToSystemTime(#FileTimeReturn, #SystemTimeReturn) then
GetFileDateResult := SystemTimeReturn;
end;
FindClose(CheckFile);
end;
GetFileDate := GetFileDateResult;
end;