Identifiers, and naming them

Identifiers, and naming them

The name of a variable, function, class, or other object in C++ is called an identifier. C++ gives you a lot of flexibility to name identifiers as you wish. However, there are a few rules that must be followed when naming identifiers:

• The identifier can not be a keyword. Keywords are reserved.
• The identifier can only be composed of letters (lower or upper case), numbers, and the underscore character. That means the name can not contain symbols (except the underscore) nor whitespace.
• The identifier must begin with a letter (lower or upper case) or an underscore. It can not start with a number.
• C++ distinguishes between lower and upper case letters. nvalue is different than nValue is different thanNVALUE.

Now that you know how you can name a variable, let’s talk about how you should name a variable or function.

First, it is a convention in C++ that variable names should begin with a lowercase letter. If the variable name is one word, the whole thing should be written in lowercase letters.

1 int value; // correct

2 int Value; // incorrect (should start with lower case letter)

3 int VALUE; // incorrect (should start with lower case letter)

4 int VaLuE; // incorrect (see your psychiatrist) ;)

Generally, functions are also started with a lowercase letter (though there’s some disagreement on this point). We’ll start ours with lower case letters because main() (which all programs must have) starts with a lower case letter, as do all of the functions in the standard template library.

Identifier names that start with a capital letter are typically used for structs, classes, and enumerations (all of which we will cover later).

If the variable or function name is multi-word, there are two common conventions: separated by underscores, or intercapped (sometimes called CamelCase).

1  int my_variable_name; // correct (separated by underscores)

2  int myVariableName; // correct (intercapped/camelCase)

3  int my variable name; // incorrect (spaces not allowed)

4  int MyVariableName; // incorrect (should start with lower case letter)

In this tutorial, we will typically use the intercapped approach because it’s easier to read (it’s easy to mistake an underscore for a space in dense blocks of code). But it’s common to see either -- the C++ standard library uses the underscore method for both variables and functions. Sometimes you’ll see a mix of the two: underscores used for variables and intercaps used for functions.

Second, you should avoid naming your identifiers starting with an underscore, as these names are typically reserved for OS, library, and/or compiler use.

Third, and this is perhaps the most important rule of all, give your identifiers names that actually describe what they are. It is typical for inexperienced programmers to make variable names as short as possible, either to save on typing or because they figure the meaning is obvious. This is almost always a mistake. Ideally, variables should be named in a way that would help someone who has no idea what your code does be able to figure it out as quickly as possible. In 3 months, when you look at your program again, you’ll have forgotten how it works, and you’ll thank yourself for picking variable names that make sense. The more complex the code the variable is being used in, the better name it should have.

int ccount	Bad	Nobody knows what a ccount is
int customerCount	Good	Clear what we’re counting
int i	Bad*	Generally bad unless use is trivial, such as loop variables
int index	Either	Okay if obvious what we’re indexing
int totalScore	Good	Descriptive
int _count	Bad	Do not start variable names with underscore
int count	Either	Okay if obvious what we’re counting
int data	Bad	What kind of data?
int value1, value2	Either	Can be hard to differentiate between the two
int numberOfApples	Good	Descriptive
int monstersKilled	Good	Descriptive
int x, y	Bad*	Generally bad unless use is trivial, such as in trivial mathematical functions

* Note: it is okay to use trivial variable names for variables that have a trivial use, such as loop variables, or trivial mathematical functions.

Fourth, a clarifying comment can go a long way. For example, say we’ve declared a variable named numberOfCharsthat is supposed to store the number of characters in a piece of text. Does the text “Hello World!” have 10, 11, or 12 characters? It depends on whether we’re including whitespace or punctuation. Rather than naming the variablenumberOfCharsIncludingWhitespaceAndPunctuation, which is rather lengthy, a well placed comment on the declaration line should help the user figure it out:

1  // holds number of chars in a piece of text -- including whitespace and punctuation!

2  int numberOfChars;

Source : http://www.learncpp.com/cpp-tutorial/14d-keywords-and-naming-identifiers/

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