Scripting custom drawing in Delphi application with IF/THEN/ELSE statements?

Question

I'm building a Delphi application which displays a blueprint of a building, including doors, windows, wiring, lighting, outlets, switches, etc. I have implemented a very lightweight script of my own to call drawing commands to the canvas, which is loaded from a database. For example, one command is ELP 1110,1110,1290,1290,3,8388608 which draws an ellipse, parameters are 1110x1110 to 1290x1290 with pen width of 3 and the color 8388608 converted from an integer to a TColor.

What I'm now doing is implementing objects with common drawing routines, and I'd like to use my scripting engine, but this calls for IF/THEN/ELSE statements and such. For example, when I'm drawing a light, if the light is turned on, I'd like to draw it yellow, but if it's off, I'd like to draw it gray. My current scripting engine has no recognition of such statements. It just accepts simple drawing commands which correspond with TCanvas methods.

Here's the procedure I've developed (incomplete) for executing a drawing command on a canvas:

function DrawCommand(const Cmd: String; var Canvas: TCanvas): Boolean;
type
 TSingleArray = array of Single;
var
 Br: TBrush;
 Pn: TPen;
 X: Integer;
 P: Integer;
 L: String;
 Inst: String;
 T: String;
 Nums: TSingleArray;
begin
 Result:= False;
 Br:= Canvas.Brush;
 Pn:= Canvas.Pen;
 if Assigned(Canvas) then begin
 if Length(Cmd) > 5 then begin
 L:= UpperCase(Cmd);
 if Pos(' ', L)> 0 then begin
 Inst:= Copy(L, 1, Pos(' ', L) - 1);
 Delete(L, 1, Pos(' ', L));
 L:= L + ',';
 SetLength(Nums, 0);
 X:= 0;
 while Pos(',', L) > 0 do begin
 P:= Pos(',', L);
 T:= Copy(L, 1, P - 1);
 Delete(L, 1, P);
 SetLength(Nums, X + 1);
 Nums[X]:= StrToFloatDef(T, 0);
 Inc(X);
 end;
 Br.Style:= bsClear;
 Pn.Style:= psSolid;
 Pn.Color:= clBlack;
 if Inst = 'LIN' then begin
 Pn.Width:= Trunc(Nums[4]);
 if Length(Nums) > 5 then begin
 Br.Style:= bsSolid;
 Br.Color:= Trunc(Nums[5]);
 end;
 Canvas.MoveTo(Trunc(Nums[0]), Trunc(Nums[1]));
 Canvas.LineTo(Trunc(Nums[2]), Trunc(Nums[3]));
 Result:= True;
 end else
 if Inst = 'ELP' then begin
 Pn.Width:= Trunc(Nums[4]);
 if Length(Nums) > 5 then begin
 Br.Style:= bsSolid;
 Br.Color:= Trunc(Nums[5]);
 end;
 Canvas.Ellipse(Trunc(Nums[0]),Trunc(Nums[1]),Trunc(Nums[2]),Trunc(Nums[3]));
 Result:= True;
 end else
 if Inst = 'ARC' then begin
 Pn.Width:= Trunc(Nums[8]);
 Canvas.Arc(Trunc(Nums[0]),Trunc(Nums[1]),Trunc(Nums[2]),Trunc(Nums[3]),
 Trunc(Nums[4]),Trunc(Nums[5]),Trunc(Nums[6]),Trunc(Nums[7]));
 Result:= True;
 end else
 if Inst = 'TXT' then begin
 Canvas.Font.Size:= Trunc(Nums[2]);
 Br.Style:= bsClear;
 Pn.Style:= psSolid;
 T:= Cmd;
 Delete(T, 1, Pos(' ', T));
 Delete(T, 1, Pos(',', T));
 Delete(T, 1, Pos(',', T));
 Delete(T, 1, Pos(',', T));
 Canvas.TextOut(Trunc(Nums[0]), Trunc(Nums[1]), T);
 Result:= True;
 end;
 end else begin
 //No space found, not a valid command
 end;
 end;
 end;
end;

What I'd like to know is what's a good lightweight third-party scripting engine I could use to accomplish this? I would hate to implement parsing of IF, THEN, ELSE, END, IFELSE, IFEND, and all those necessary commands. I need simply the ability to tell the scripting engine if certain properties meet certain conditions, it needs to draw the object a certain way.

The light example above is only one scenario, but the same solution needs to also be applicable to other scenarios, such as a door being open or closed, locked or unlocked, and draw it a different way accordingly. This needs to be implemented in the object script drawing level. I can't hard-code any of these scripting/drawing rules, the drawing needs to be controlled based on the current state of the object, and I may also wish to draw a light a certain shade or darkness depending on how dimmed the light is.

• yannis: I haven't touched Delphi in ages, but it shouldn't be (too) hard to embed Lua in it. (also: matrix44.de/lua)
• Warren P: I used the JVCL Pascal scripting engine, and combined it with FlexGraphics component: flex-graphics.com

Answer 1

Have a look at DWS. It's essentially Delphi scripting in Delphi. (Or fairly close. It's its own dialect of Object Pascal, but the author's done an impressive job of it.)

• Jerry Dodge: Looks promising, if I can replicate the TCanvas object in this engine, and synchronize every call/property, I would be set.
• Mason Wheeler: @Jerry: Look at DWS's external units. You can import native objects into DWS with them. It's a bit clumsier than it probably should be, because the author wants a "thick wrapper" around native objects to ensure scripts can be aborted without compromising memory safety, but it can be done.

Answer 2

Lua integration?

http://www.lua.org/docs.html

Lua is language designed for embedding (can be run standalone too)

High speed like in interpreter class, good controlled RAM use. Very good integration with C/C++ Borland too (i haven't legal Delphi to check), few Delphi integrations exist.