This directive is recognized for compatibility with Turbo Pascal. Under the 32-bit and 64-bit programming models, the concept of near and far calls have no meaning, hence the directive is ignored. A warning is printed to the screen, as a reminder.
As an example, the following piece of code:
{$F+}
Procedure TestProc;
begin
Writeln ('Hello From TestProc');
end;
begin
testProc
end.
Generates the following compiler output:
malpertuus: >pp -vw testf Compiler: ppc386 Units are searched in: /home/michael;/usr/bin/;/usr/lib/ppc/0.9.1/linuxunits Target OS: Linux Compiling testf.pp testf.pp(1) Warning: illegal compiler switch 7739 kB free Calling assembler... Assembled... Calling linker... 12 lines compiled, 1.00000000000000E+0000
One can see that the verbosity level was set to display warnings.
When declaring a function as Far (this has the same effect as setting it between {$F+} …{$F-} directives), the compiler also generates a warning:
testf.pp(3) Warning: FAR ignored
The same story is true for procedures declared as Near. The warning displayed in that case is:
testf.pp(3) Warning: NEAR ignored