What is a good naming convention for vars methods etc in C

Question

I come from a the Objective-C and Cocoa world where there are lots of conventions and many people will say it makes your code beautiful  Now programming in C   I cannot find a good document like this one for C     http   developer apple com library mac  documentation Cocoa Conceptual CodingGuidelines CodingGuidelines html  Standard C   probably does not have something like above but I hope I can stick to some other SDK or APIs  like Microsoft s    etc  conventions    I hope you can provide me with some links

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There are many different sytles conventions that people use when coding C    For example  some people prefer separating words using capitals  myVar or MyVar   or using underscores  my var   Typically  variables that use underscores are in all lowercase  from my experience   There is also a coding style called hungarian  which I believe is used by microsoft  I personally believe that it is a waste of time  but it may prove useful  This is were variable names are given short prefixes such as i  or f to hint the variables type  For example  int iVarname  char  strVarname   It is accepted that you end a struct class name with  t  to differentiate it from a variable name  E g    class cat t             cat t myCat    It is also generally accepted to add a affix to indicate pointers  such as pVariable or variable p   In all  there really isn t any single standard  but many  The choices you make about naming your variables doesn t matter  so long as it is understandable  and above all  consistent  Consistency  consistency  CONSISTENCY   try typing that thrice    And if all else fails  google it

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not nearly as concise as the link you provided  but the following chapter 14 - 24 may help    hehe  ref  http   www amazon com Coding-Standards-Rules-Guidelines-Practices dp 0321113586 ref sr 1 1 ie UTF8 amp s books amp qid 1284443869 amp sr 8-1-catcorr

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For what it is worth  Bjarne Stroustrup  the original author of C   has his own favorite style  described here  http   www stroustrup com bs faq2 html

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I actually often use Java style  PascalCase for type names  camelCase for functions and variables  CAPITAL WORDS for preprocessor macros  I prefer that over the Boost STL conventions because you don t have to suffix types with  type  E g   Size size      instead of  size type size         I don t like suffixes   This has the additional benefit that the StackOverflow code formatter recognizes Size as a type name  -

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Do whatever you want as long as its minimal  consistent  and doesn t break any rules   Personally  I find the Boost style easiest  it matches the standard library  giving a uniform look to code  and is simple  I personally tack on m and p prefixes to members and parameters  respectively  giving    ifndef NAMESPACE NAMES THEN PRIMARY CLASS OR FUNCTION THEN HPP  define NAMESPACE NAMES THEN PRIMARY CLASS OR FUNCTION THEN HPP   include  lt boost headers go first gt   include  lt boost in alphabetical order gt   include  lt then standard headers gt   include  lt in alphabetical order gt    include  then any detail headers   include  in alphabetical order   include  then any remaining headers in      you ll never guess   include  alphabetical order duh    define NAMESPACE NAMES THEN MACRO NAME pMacroNames  ARE ALL CAPS  namespace lowercase identifers       class separated by underscores           public          void because underscores are   const                       volatile int mostLikeSpaces   0     but local names are condensed              while   mostLikeSpaces                  single statements       don t need braces              for  size t i   0  i  lt  100    i                                but multiple i                   statements do                                                  const complex type amp  value   const                       return mValue     no conflict with value here                    void value const complex type amp  pValue                        mValue   pValue      or here                protected             the more public it is  the more important it is             so order  public on top  then protected then private          template  lt typename Template  typename Parameters gt          void are upper camel case                            gman was here                                private          complex type mValue             endif   That   And like I ve said in comments  do not adopt the Google Style Guide for your code  unless it s for something as inconsequential as naming convention

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We follow the guidelines listed on this page  C   Programming Style Guidelines     I d also recommend you read The Elements of C   Style by Misfeldt et al  which is quite an excellent book on this topic

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It really doesn t matter   Just make sure you name your variables and functions descriptively  Also be consistent   Nowt worse than seeing code like this   int anInt                      Great name for a variable there     int myVar   Func  anInt        And on this line a great name for a function and myVar                                lacks the consistency already  poorly  laid out     Edit   As pointed out by my commenter that consistency needs to be maintained across an entire team   As such it doesn t matter WHAT method you chose  as long as that consistency is maintained   There is no right or wrong method  however   Every team I ve worked in has had different ideas and I ve adapted to those

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There are probably as many naming conventions as there are individuals  the debate being as endless  and sterile  as to which brace style to use and so forth   So I ll have 2 advices    be consistent within a project don t use reserved identifiers  anything with two underscores or beginning with an underscore followed by an uppercase letter    The rest is up to you

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consistency and readability  self-documenting code  are important  some clues  such as case  can and should be used to avoid collisions  and to indicate whether an instance is required   one of the best practices i got into was the use of code formatters  astyle and uncrustify are 2 examples   code formatters can destroy your code formatting - configure the formatter  and let it do its job  seriously  forget about manual formatting and get into the practice of using them  they will save a ton of time   as mentioned  be very descriptive with naming  also  be very specific with scoping  class types data namespaces anonymous namespaces   in general  i really like much of java s common written form - that is a good reference and similar to c     as for specific appearance naming  this is a small sample similar to what i use  variables arguments are lowerCamel and this only demonstrates a portion of the language s features        MYC BEGIN FILE ID  FD Directory nanotimer FN nanotimer hpp   MYC BEGIN FILE DIR  Directory nanotimer  MYC BEGIN FILE FILE  nanotimer hpp  Copyright        ifndef FD Directory nanotimer FN nanotimer hpp   define FD Directory nanotimer FN nanotimer hpp      typical commentary omitted -- comments detail notations conventions  also  no defines macros other than header guards     namespace NamespaceName       types prefixed with  t      class t nanotimer   public t base timer          private types        class t thing                          public         public types        typedef uint64 t t nanosecond          factory initializers -- UpperCamel        t nanotimer  WithFloat const float amp  arg          public protected class interface -- UpperCamel        static float Uptime    protected         static class data -- UpperCamel -- accessors  if needed  use Get Set prefix        static const t spoke Spoke  public         enums in interface are labeled as static class data        enum   Granularity   4    public         construction destruction -- always use proper initialization list        explicit t nanotimer t init       explicit t nanotimer const float amp  arg        virtual  t nanotimer                   public and protected instance methods -- lowercaseCamel          - booleans prefer is has        - accessors use the form  getVariable   setVariable           const-correctness is important             const void  address   const      virtual uint64 t hashCode   const  protected         interfaces implementation of base pure virtuals  assume this was pure virtual in t base timer         virtual bool hasExpired   const  private         private methods and private static data        void invalidate    private                instance variables        - i tend to use underscore suffix  but d   for example  is another good alternative        - note redundancy in visibility             t thing ivar   private         prohibited stuff        explicit t nanotimer        explicit t nanotimer const int amp             lt  lt  NamespaceName       i often add a multiple include else block here  preferring package-style inclusions         endif    MYC END FILE  FD Directory nanotimer FN nanotimer hpp

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While many people will suggest more or less strict Hungarian notation variants  scary    for naming suggestions I d suggest you take a look at Google C   Coding Guidelines  This may well be not the most popular naming conventions  but at least it s fairly complete  Apart from sound naming conventions  there s some useful guidelines there  however much of it should be taken with a grain of salt  exception ban for example  and the tendency to keep away from modern C   coding style     Although personally I like the extreme low-tech convention style of STL and Boost

[c++] What is a good naming convention for vars, methods, etc in C++?

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