Delphi Or Pascal this is the question...?....

Delphi. Sorry.

And obviously I don';t want to put the strings in a text file that someone can get at, or loose.

I guess a DLL is another possibility.

I'm not really good in Delphi but I think I can help you a bit
If you click this page then you can read about a way to resolve your problem
http://delphi.about.com/od/windowssh...dll_basics.htm

Thanks. I could probably use a DLL that contains one function and all it does is return a string from a massive string constants array. That would work better than creating a text file and searching through it to find a string, such as searching for a string that starts with an ID code, then grabbing the rest of it.

My basic concern is using up data space in my app with all these strings. Does moving these strings/string array to a separate DLL help me get around that problem?

Another possibility would be to create a small database structure and placing the items in a database file. IF you have not explored database managment in Delphi yet, then this would be a good opportunity to do so.

You may also want to reconsider the idea of user access. Many programs store all text prompts in separate files to allow easy conversion between languages. In some commercial programs, it is possible to modify these text strings to customize them for applications or terminaology within a company. Also, if a user is going to loose a file he is no more likely to loose a text file than the dll you create and can always restore the oringal to his directories if he/she does.