What is the current scheme for naming variables and functions?

Question

Is there a standard way to name them or is it programmer's call?

Thank you.

Answer 1

It's a reason for the holy wars in the programmer's office. Kind of akin to the one true bracing style.

Stay away from Hungarian Notation. ;-)

Answer 2

Something very basic and pretty much universally accepted:

• use nouns for variable names.

• use verbs for function names.

This makes coding easier to understand.

Beyond that, there are lots and lots of "rules" - I suspect the other answers will provide a few.

Answer 3

Use your company's coding guidelines; challenge them if they are outdated (i.e. keep a list of changes at the top of the file despite using version control).

If you're the first programmer or doing it for yourself, decide on a set of coding guidelines that works for you, document it, and stick with it.

Answer 4

Here are the naming guidelines posted by the GNU folks; they're similar to many others and about as good:

http://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/Names.html#Names

Answer 5

Well,

I usually name functions as:

MyFunctionToDoSomething();

variables/members as:

my_var_to_accept_something;

global variables:

MY_GLOBAL_VARIABLE;

Above all I try to keep all my naming to this standard. I really don't know what notation this follows, but I'm not a big fan of the Hungarian notation, so...

BTW, I see a lot of people going to some lengths to write small names which later on they wont understand... I learned to don't do that for the same reason. After all most IDE have auto-complete features so using long names isn't really an issue.

Cheers

Answer 6

Name your variables in english.
Comment in english.

But if you must use a different language, then use it for all variables and comments. Don't mix english (other than keywords and library functions) with your language.

I hate to see code like:

void  FreeT( void* puntero ) {

    unsigned long size;

    size = *(long*) ( (char*)puntero - offset );
//    memcpy( &size ,, offset );
    if ( !size ) return; 
    total_bloques --;
    total_alocado -= size ;
    free( (char*)puntero - offset );
}