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Euphoria Standard Library (ESL) - Coding Standards

Specific coding guidelines

Status of this topic : under discussion

example : boolean.e

• Constant names are all written in all capital letters, ex. constant TRUE = 1.
• Global variables start with a capital letter.
  (NOTE: Not Rob's coding style but many people do this and I think it works very well)
  (ALSO NOTE: global could mean global in the file or global as in exported) ex.
  integer Debug_switch
• Local variables are written in all lowercase letters, ex. integer index.
• All routines and types are written in all lowercase letters, ex. function foo().
• In multiple-word routine and type names, words are separated with a single underscore character, ex.
  function foo_bar().
• Variable names are written in a "block" style, ex.
  constant A = "a",
           BC = "bc",
           DEF = "def"
• Comments should have at least one space after the "--", if there isn't one it's commented out code, ex.
  -- This is a comment, below is a line of code commented out
  --line = "commented out"
• The beginning of a code block and the end should be all on one line unless it is longer than 80 characters, ex.
  function foo()
      do_stuff()
  end function
• All code blocks should be indented with 4 spaces like ed does (but not with one tab of size 4!), ex.
  if x = 5 then
      do_stuff()
  end if
• No line should be longer than 80 characters wide.
• If the next line is run off from a previous use 2 space indent, ex.
  if a = 5 and b = 4
    and c = 3 then
• For the most part, constants and routines should not be abbreviations (only local variables), ex.
  procedure position()
    integer pos
• Do not use neither lowercase nor uppercase character O as variable name, because both are easily confused with zero. Also don't use uppercase letter i or lowercase letter L which can both be confused with the number 1.
• Inside a module file constants, types, and routines should be kept separate from one another in clearly marked sections. However, due to how Euphoria handles declarations and the logical structure of the file this might not be desirable/possible. It should go constants, types, then routines. Globals should be declared before locals when possible for constants and types, ex.
  -- Global constants
       global constant ... -- Declarations go here
  -- Local constants
       constant ... -- Declarations go here
  -- Global types
       global type ... -- Declarations go here
  -- Local types
       type ... -- Declarations go here
  -- Routines
       -- Declarations go here