Building DCPcrypt

February 11, 2026 · View on GitHub

This document describes how to build DCPcrypt from source on different platforms.

Requirements

Compiler

Free Pascal Compiler (FPC) 3.2.0 or later
Lazarus IDE 2.0 or later (optional, for GUI examples and package installation)

No External Dependencies

DCPcrypt is a pure Pascal cryptographic library. It has no runtime dependencies on any external library - all algorithms are implemented in Pascal source code.

Building

Using Makefile (Linux/macOS/Windows with MSYS2)

Run make help to see all available targets:

BUILD:
  make build            - Compile all test programs
  make build-examples   - Compile all examples (console + GUI)
  make build-console    - Compile console examples
  make build-gui        - Compile GUI examples (requires lazbuild)
  make build-all        - Compile everything (tests + examples)
  make rebuild          - Clean and rebuild tests

TEST:
  make test             - Build and run all tests

VERIFY:
  make check            - Full verification (clean, build, test)
  make info             - Show project information

CLEANUP:
  make clean            - Remove compiled test binaries and objects
  make clean-examples   - Clean examples/ build artifacts
  make clean-all        - Clean tests, examples and source build artifacts

Common workflows:

# Quick build and test
make test

# Build all examples (console + GUI)
make build-examples

# Build everything (tests + examples)
make build-all

# Full verification before commit
make check

# Show project info
make info

Using fpc (Command Line)

Build tests directly with the Free Pascal Compiler:

# Build a test program
fpc -Mdelphi -FEtests -Fusrc -Fusrc/Ciphers -Fusrc/Hashes -Futests tests/test_hashes.lpr

# Build a console example (no -Mdelphi needed, examples use {$MODE ObjFPC})
fpc -FEexamples/console -Fusrc -Fusrc/Ciphers -Fusrc/Hashes examples/console/demo_encrypt_string.lpr

Note: The -Mdelphi flag is not required: all source units and examples have explicit {$MODE} directives.

Using Lazarus IDE

Open src/dcpcrypt.lpk (runtime package)
Click "Compile" to build the package
Open src/dcpcrypt_laz.lpk (design-time package)
Click "Use > Install" to install in the IDE
Cipher and hash components appear on the component palette

Using lazbuild (Command Line)

# Build a GUI example
lazbuild examples/gui/EncryptStrings/EncryptStringsViaEncryptStream.lpi
lazbuild examples/gui/FileEncrypt/EncryptFileUsingThread.lpi

Compiler Flags

Flag	Purpose
`-Fusrc`	Unit search path: core units
`-Fusrc/Ciphers`	Unit search path: cipher implementations
`-Fusrc/Hashes`	Unit search path: hash implementations
`-Futests`	Unit search path: shared test utilities
`-FE<dir>`	Output directory for compiled binaries

Platform-Specific Notes

Linux (Debian/Ubuntu)

No additional dependencies for tests and console examples. For GUI examples:

# GUI dependencies (for LCL compilation)
sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-0 libgtk2.0-dev

Linux (Fedora/RHEL)

# GUI dependencies
sudo dnf install gtk2 gtk2-devel

Linux (Arch)

# GUI dependencies
sudo pacman -S gtk2

Windows

No additional dependencies. FPC produces .exe binaries automatically.

macOS

No additional dependencies. LCL uses Cocoa backend.

Running Tests

# Using Makefile
make test

# Or manually
fpc -Mdelphi -FEtests -Fusrc -Fusrc/Ciphers -Fusrc/Hashes -Futests tests/test_hashes.lpr
tests/test_hashes

The test suite contains 5 programs (282 individual checks):

Program	Coverage
`test_hashes`	SelfTest, digest correctness, determinism, Burn for all 10 hashes
`test_ciphers`	SelfTest, encrypt/decrypt roundtrip, Burn, properties for all 20 ciphers
`test_block_modes`	ECB, CBC, CFB8bit, CFBblock, OFB, CTR for Rijndael and Blowfish
`test_base64`	Encode/decode roundtrips, RFC 4648 known values, binary data
`test_stream_encrypt`	Salt+IV stream encryption, PartialEncryptStream, OnProgressEvent

CI/CD

The project uses GitHub Actions for continuous integration. See .github/workflows/ci.yml.

Tests and examples build automatically on Linux using a Docker container with FPC and Lazarus pre-installed (wimmercg/lazarus-docker:1.2.0).

See .github/workflows/README.md for details.

Troubleshooting

"Identifier not found: Result"

Your source file is missing a {$MODE} directive. Add one of these at the top of your unit:

{$MODE Delphi}    // or
{$MODE ObjFPC}{$H+}

GUI examples fail to compile on Linux

Install GTK2 development packages:

sudo apt-get install libgtk2.0-dev

"Unit not found: DCPrijndael"

The unit search paths are missing. Add all three source directories:

fpc -Fusrc -Fusrc/Ciphers -Fusrc/Hashes ...

The Gost cipher's built-in SelfTest returns False due to a known upstream test vector mismatch. Encrypt/decrypt roundtrips work correctly. This is reported as a warning (not a failure) in the test suite.