Static API vs helper API

StringKit-FP has two ways to call most operations. Pick the one that makes the surrounding code clearer; they are alternatives, not two implementations.

Static API#

Add StringKit and call a class function:

Clean := TStringKit.Trim(' hello ');

Static calls make the owning library obvious. They are also the only natural form for operations whose main input is not a source string, such as TStringKit.ToRoman(2026).

Helper API#

Add both StringKit and StringKitHelper:

Clean := ' hello '.Trim;

The helper is useful for left-to-right reading and chaining:

Clean := '  HELLO   WORLD  '.Trim.CollapseWhitespace.ToLower;

Feature flags#

With no helper symbols, StringKit-FP defines SK_ALL, so every helper group is available. To build only selected groups, define SK_ANY at the project/compiler level and add the groups you need, for example -dSK_ANY -dSK_ENCODE.

Group	Helper area
`SK_MANIP`	trim, padding, whitespace, substring
`SK_MATCH`	regex, replacement, contains, words
`SK_COMPARE`	distance, similarity, fuzzy matching
`SK_CASE`	title, camel, Pascal, snake, kebab case
`SK_VALIDATE`	email, URL, IP, date
`SK_FORMAT`	truncation and number/file-size formatting
`SK_NUMERIC`	Roman numerals, ordinals, number words
`SK_ENCODE`	HTML, URL, Base64, hex
`SK_SPLIT`	split and join
`SK_PHONETIC`	Soundex, Metaphone, readability, n-grams

Defines inside a program do not change a separately compiled StringKitHelper unit. Set them in Lazarus project options or the FPC command line. The helper feature-flags reference and coverage table have the complete details.