How to output an array that has nested arrays in Pascal - arrays

Question

I'm creating a basic concept of a music player using Pascal, but I'm struggling to display the albums inside it. The error I got says "(134, 29) Error: Can't read or write variables of this type". I'm assuming it's saying that because I'm using an array within an array, and it's having a hard time displaying both at the same time (although I only want it to display the albums, not the tracks as well).
Here's what my code looks like:
function ReadAllTrack(prompt: String): Tracks;
var
i: Integer;
trackArray: Array of Track;
trackCount: Integer;
begin
WriteLn(prompt);
trackCount := ReadIntegerGreaterThan1('Please enter the number of tracks you would like to add: ');
Setlength(trackArray, trackCount);
for i := 0 to trackCount - 1 do
begin
WriteLn('Enter the details for your track:');
trackArray[i] := ReadTrack();
end;
result := trackArray;
end;
function ReadAlbum(): Album;
begin
result.albumName := ReadString('Album name: ');
result.artistName := ReadString('Artist name: ');
result.albumGenre := ReadGenre('Genre:');
result.trackCollection := ReadAllTrack('Track Collection:');
end;
function ReadAllAlbums(): Albums;
var
i: Integer;
albumArray: Array of Album;
albumCount: Integer;
begin
albumCount := ReadIntegerGreaterThan1('Please enter the number of albums you would like to add: ');
Setlength(albumArray, albumCount);
for i := 0 to albumCount - 1 do
begin
WriteLn('Enter the details for your album:');
albumArray[i] := ReadAlbum();
end;
result := albumArray;
end;
procedure DisplayAlbumOptions(listOfAllAlbums: Albums);
var
userInput: Integer;
begin
WriteLn('1. Display all albums');
WriteLn('2. Display all albums for a genre');
userInput := ReadIntegerRange('Please enter a number (1, 2) to select: ', 1, 2);
case userInput of
1: WriteLn(listOfAllAlbums); //Error: Can't read or write variables of this type
end;
end;
Basically what this does is it will ask the user showing 5 options:
1. Add albums
2. Display albums
etc
If the user selects 1, the program will ask the user to input the number of albums they want to input. Then for each album it'll ask them to enter the details, and then the tracks.
Then if the user selects 2, the program will ask the user to choose either display every single album there is, or display all albums for a single genre (I'll be working on this one after solving this problem). At first I thought it would be just as simple as WriteLn(TheAlbumArray); but turns out it was more complicated than I thought because I don't think it's possible for the program to display it this way. I tried separating the albums and tracks so that it would only display the albums when I use WriteLn(TheAlbumArray); but it wasn't possible because the tracks still have to be "inside" the album so that when I display the albums and select one of them, it would then display the tracks....
Any help or suggestion for this and/or the second will be much appreciated ^^

Answer 1

Your original question contained a lot of superfluous detail. After the edit, you removed the type declarations, but kept much of the superfluous detail.
However, it is possible to discern the problem you are passing an array of record to Writeln. The Writeln function can accept only certain simple types as arguments, e.g. strings, numerical types, boolean. You certainly cannot pass an array to Writeln. You must iterate over the array and process each member individually.
So you might try
for i := low(listOfAllAlbums) to high(listOfAllAlbums) do
WriteLn(listOfAllAlbums[i]);
But that does not work either, because listOfAllAlbums[i] is a record, and a record is a compound type which cannot be passed to Writeln. So you need to process the record separately. If you want to display just the title, then you write:
for i := low(listOfAllAlbums) to high(listOfAllAlbums) do
WriteLn(listOfAllAlbums[i].albumName);
If you want to print the track titles too then you need to iterate over the array contained in the record.
for i := low(listOfAllAlbums) to high(listOfAllAlbums) do
begin
WriteLn(listOfAllAlbums[i].albumName);
for j := low(trackCollection) to high(trackCollection) do
WriteLn(listOfAllAlbums[i].trackCollection[j]);
end;

Answer 2

It is impossible to use composite types (arrays, records, ...) in Read[ln] and Write[ln] procedures.
To make your code more transparent you could to create type helper for your array(s) and use well-known AsString property. Here is example for simple array of Integer:
program foo;
{$mode objfpc}{$H+}
{$modeswitch typehelpers}
uses
Classes, SysUtils;
type
TMyArray = array of Integer;
TMyArrayHelper = type helper for TMyArray
private
function GetAsString: string;
procedure SetAsString(const AValue: string);
public
property AsString: string read GetAsString write SetAsString;
end;
function TMyArrayHelper.GetAsString: string;
var
i: Integer;
begin
Result := '';
for i in Self do
begin
if Result <> '' then
Result := Result + ', ';
Result := Result + IntToStr(i);
end;
Result := '[' + Result + ']';
end;
// Relatively simple parser
// Fill free to implement ones for your array type
procedure TMyArrayHelper.SetAsString(const AValue: string);
var
tmp, s: string;
items: TStringArray;
i: Integer;
begin
tmp := Trim(AValue);
if not (tmp.StartsWith('[') and tmp.EndsWith(']')) then
raise Exception.CreateFmt('Invalid array literal format: "%s"', [tmp]);
tmp := tmp.Trim(['[', ']']);
items := tmp.Split([',']);
for s in items do
try
StrToInt(s);
except
on e: Exception do
raise Exception.CreateFmt('Invalid integer literal: "%s"', [s]);
end;
SetLength(Self, Length(items));
for i := 0 to Length(items) - 1 do
Self[i] := StrToInt(items[i]);
end;
var
a1, a2: TMyArray;
begin
a1.AsString := '[1,2,3,5]';
Writeln('a1 = ', a1.AsString);
a2.AsString := a1.AsString;
a2[1] := 999;
Writeln('a2 = ', a2.AsString);
end.
Helper types in FreePascal
TStringHelper in SysUtils unit