5.1 Give a reason for the use of EACH of the following structures in a Delphi program: 5.1.1 FormCreate event 5.1.2 A WHILE loop instead of a FOR loop 5.1.3 Ord function 5.2 Students can log in on the university's website or portal to access resources - NSC Information Technology - Question 5 - 2018 - Paper 2

A WHILE loop is used when the number of iterations is unknown beforehand, meaning it will continue looping while a certain condition remains true. This flexibility makes it ideal for situations where the exit condition is based on user input or other dynamic criteria.

The Ord function is used to determine the ASCII or ordinal value of a character. This is helpful when conversions between character types and their corresponding numeric values are required, for example, in text processing.

Encapsulation refers to the concept of restricting access to certain components of an object, thus preventing unauthorized access and modification. It ensures that the internal state of an object is hidden from the outside, exposing only what is necessary through methods.

A suitable data type for the fDateOfEntry attribute would be 'DateTime' as it allows for storing both date and time information, which is essential for capturing the exact moment of entry.

A method that can be added to the class diagram is:

function setLoginNumber(LoginNumber: integer);
begin
  self.fLoginNumber := LoginNumber;
end;

This method takes an integer as a parameter and updates the fLoginNumber attribute of the object.

The type of search technique used in the code above is a 'Linear' or 'Sequential' search, as it checks each element in the array one by one until it finds a match or reaches the end.

The program code can be improved by implementing better programming techniques. For instance, it should include error handling to manage cases where the student number is not found, and avoid using fixed values like 1000, making it less adaptable for different number of entries. Additionally, a more efficient search method could be employed.

Here’s a pseudocode implementation of an effective search procedure:

// Initialize variables
Search = InputBox('Search','Enter student number','S0001')
Found = false
Pos = 1

while not Found and Pos <= length(arrStudNumbers) do
    if arrStudNumbers[Pos] = Search then
        arrMathResults[Pos] = new result input
        Found = true
    end if
    Pos = Pos + 1
end while

This code will stop searching as soon as the relevant student number is found and updated.