Project Scoping

Delphi codebases can often have indistinct boundaries, with common source files being shared by multiple Delphi projects. There are a few ways of handling this from a SonarDelphi perspective.

Method 1: Having a different Sonar project for each .dproj file

This is the ideal project setup from an analysis quality standpoint.

Obviously, only do this for significantly different .dproj files - if your project has several almost identical .dproj files to support multiple Delphi versions, for example, then it's probably best to have a single project that includes only your latest .dproj.

Method 2: Having one big Sonar project with multiple .dproj files in it

If SonarDelphi encounters multiple .dproj files during analysis, it will simply aggregate the values from all of them together. In practice, this means that for every source file SonarDelphi would use every search path and compiler define from the included .dproj files.

This is almost never the right thing to do, because conflicting configuration between .dproj files usually renders the scan results unreliable.

Take this example:

MyDelphiCode/
  ProjectA/
    ProjectA.dproj
  ProjectB/
    ProjectB.dproj
  Common/
    CommonFile.pas

If ProjectA.dproj and ProjectB.dproj both include CommonFile.pas, there are now two "versions" of CommonFile.pas: one that uses the search path, configuration, and compiler defines of ProjectA.dproj, and another that uses those of ProjectB.dproj.

How can SonarDelphi reasonably come up with a "correct" interpretation of CommonFile.pas to analyze? As a fallback, it makes a best-effort attempt by simply combining the settings from both .dproj files together. Unless both .dproj files are set up very similarly, this is rarely the desired outcome.

In this case, ProjectA and ProjectB should be two separate Sonar projects. CommonFile.pas could be handled in a few different ways:

Possible Solution	Pros	Cons
Include CommonFile.pas in both Sonar projects	Both interpretations are scanned for issues	Issue duplication between the two projects
Include CommonFile.pas in one of the Sonar projects	One source of truth for raised issues	Only scans one interpretation of the code
Add CommonFile.pas to a separate "Common" Sonar project	Can be freely customized to scan an authoritative version of CommonFile.pas	Doesn't reliably reflect either project, requires manual setup

Method 3: Don't rely on .dproj files at all

SonarDelphi lets you manually configure all of the settings it reads from .dproj files - see Project Options.

If your Delphi codebase is arranged in such a way that scanning a .dproj does not make sense, this is the only option. When configured correctly, this works just as well as Method 1 - it just requires a little more care and maintenance.