How to employ DPROJ <ProjectGUID> within Delphi code?

Question

I want to use a GUID to uniquely identify my Application and to get at this value from within the code. I see that there is a GUID that would be ideal in the DPROJ:

<Project xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/developer/msbuild/2003">
    <PropertyGroup>
        <ProjectGuid>{D4DB842C-FB4C-481B-8952-77DA04E37102}</ProjectGuid>

Does this get into the exe anywhere, eg as a resource? If not, what is the neatest way of linking in this GUID value into my exe file and reading it in code. The above GUID resides in a dedicated text file and is pasted into the DPROJ with my DprojMaker tool, so I can INCLUDE it in anything you might suggest. Thanks

Answer 1

AFAIK the <ProjectGUID> is not embedded in the Exe file, but you can create an application to read the project guid and insert as a resource in your exe.

Check this sample app which read a file a create/updates a resource in a exe.

program UpdateResEXE;

{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}

uses
  Classes,
  Windows,
  SysUtils;

//you can improve this method to read the ProjectGUID value directly from the dproj file using XML.
procedure UpdateExeResource(Const Source, ResourceName, ExeFile:string);
var
  LStream    : TFileStream;
  hUpdate    : THANDLE;
  lpData     : Pointer;
  cbData     : DWORD;
begin
  LStream := TFileStream.Create(Source,fmOpenRead or fmShareDenyNone);
  try
    LStream.Seek(0, soFromBeginning);
    cbData:=LStream.Size;
    if cbData>0 then
    begin
      GetMem(lpData,cbData);
      try
        LStream.Read(lpData^, cbData);
        hUpdate:= BeginUpdateResource(PChar(ExeFile), False);
        if hUpdate <> 0 then
          if UpdateResource(hUpdate, RT_RCDATA, PChar(ResourceName),0,lpData,cbData) then
          begin
            if not EndUpdateResource(hUpdate,FALSE) then RaiseLastOSError
          end
          else
          RaiseLastOSError
        else
        RaiseLastOSError;
      finally
        FreeMem(lpData);
      end;
    end;
  finally
    LStream.Free;
  end;
end;

begin
  try
    if ParamCount<>3 then
    begin
     Writeln('Wrong parameters number');
     Halt(1);
    end;
    Writeln(Format('Adding/Updating resource %s in %s',[ParamStr(2), ParamStr(3)]));
    UpdateExeResource( ParamStr(1), ParamStr(2), ParamStr(3));
    Writeln('Done');
  except
    on E: Exception do
      Writeln(E.ClassName, ': ', E.Message);
  end;
end. 

Now from your app, you can use the Post build events to call this application on this way

"C:\The path where is the tool goes here\UpdateResEXE.exe"  "C:\The path of the file which contains the ProjectGUID goes here\Foo.txt"  Project_GUID  "$(OUTPUTPATH)"

And use like so :

{$APPTYPE CONSOLE}

uses
  Windows,
  Classes,
  System.SysUtils;


function GetProjectGUID : string;
var
  RS: TResourceStream;
  SS: TStringStream;
begin
  RS := TResourceStream.Create(HInstance, 'Project_GUID', RT_RCDATA);
  try
    SS:=TStringStream.Create;
    try
      SS.CopyFrom(RS, RS.Size);
      Result:= SS.DataString;
    finally
     SS.Free;
    end;
  finally
    RS.Free;
  end;
end;


begin
  try
    Writeln(Format('Project GUID %s',[GetProjectGUID]));
  except
    on E: Exception do
      Writeln(E.ClassName, ': ', E.Message);
  end;
  readln;
end.

Answer 2

Why not just hard-code your own GUID inside your code itself? The Code Editor has a CTRL+SHIFT+G keyboard shortcut for generating a new GUID string at the current active line of code. You can tweak that declaration into a constant variable for your code to use as needed, eg:

const
  MyGuid: TGUID = '{04573E0E-DE08-4796-A5BB-E5F1F17D51F7}';