Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mailrus!uflorida!novavax!twwells!bill
From: bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: Naming conventions
Message-ID: <1989Jun20.110051.3974@twwells.com>
Date: 20 Jun 89 11:00:51 GMT
References: <10268@watcgl.waterloo.edu> <548@corona.pb> <18137@mimsy.UUCP> <1297@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu>
Organization: None, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Lines: 28

In article <1297@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu> mcdaniel@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu (Tim McDaniel) writes:
: Usually, I would not have "g_" prefixes on the members.  Instead, I
: name *pointer and structure variables* according to their types.  I
: would declare a pointer as
:         struct glumph_t * glumph_p;
: (thereby confusing the hell out of any LISP programmer who stumbles
: upon my code, but he deserves it) or even as
:         struct glumph_t * glumph;
:
: You see, I *really* *like* descriptive names.  If they're long, c'est
: la vie.  If a variable represents a descriptor (in places where
: there's no confusion about what kind of thing it's descripting),
: I bloody well call it "descriptor"!  Or at least prefix it with
: "desc_".

The scheme you use is only appropriate for *generic* pointers of a
given type. In other words, if I have a pointer used for a general
temp, I'm likely to call it struct passwd passwd_ptr. But if I use the
pointer to refer to a particular structure, I use something like
struct passwd users_password_entry. And in that case, the field name
prefix helps clue me in as to the specific structure.

No, I don't think that struct passwd users_password_entry_passwd_ptr
is a good idea; the thing defeats the purpose by being unreadable.

---
Bill                    { uunet | novavax | ankh | sunvice } !twwells!bill
bill@twwells.com