Class names

¸class name

What should the class name in a file header be? We want it to be indicative of the file contents, even to a reader unfamiliar with the computer system from which it originated. Here are some desirable criteria:

• The class name should not be restricted by the length constraints of many file systems, and it should not use abbreviations, because they are often unintelligible to readers unfamiliar with the originating computer system, or with the language in which the header is written.
• It must also be possible to generate the class name automatically from knowledge of what the file name is, at least for those many classes of files that are distinguished by particular phrases in their file names.
• Class names must be standard across different operating systems, so that when files are moved between such systems, they can be readily associated with the correct class.
• Class names must be recognizable by a simple computer program, and thus must conform to an agreed-upon syntax.

I therefore propose that class names consist of an optional at-sign, @, immediately followed by an initial letter, optionally followed by letters, digits, and hyphens, followed by the phrase -file.

Letter case may be mixed for readability, but is not otherwise significant : @LATEX-FILE and @LaTeX-file represent the same file class.

This style of naming is common to many programming languages. Hyphens between words improve readability, while avoiding ambiguities introduced when spaces are allowed to be part of names.

Attribute names, Attribute values, Class names, Top