Using a standardized naming convention helps to simplify our work as programmers and reduce the effort needed to read and understand the source code by others and even ourselves when we later revisit the code.

When you write a project, you must have a naming convention which is the same for the entire project. The contents of that naming convention is not important per se as the choice of naming convention is up to you. Just be sure you use it consistently within a project.

Following are some naming convention examples used, and written by, different people to give you some guidance and ideas.

Naming Conventions Used in the Code for the IDE
Variable Naming Convention by Fabien Bodard
Gambas Naming Conventions by Gianluigi

Naming Conventions Used in the Code for the IDE

Created by Benoît Minisini

The naming conventions are not required by the compiler. But programs which use the following naming conventions are easier to read by other programmers who want to understand the program.

Variable names

All private variable names of a class start with $

The first letter is lower case and should depend on the type of the variable:

Letter	Type
a	Array
b	Boolean
c	Collection
f	Float
h	Object (Handle)
i	Integer, Long, Short, Byte.
n	An integer storing a number of objects.
s	String

Examples

PRIVATE $iLast AS Integer
PRIVATE $sLast AS String
PRIVATE $hEditor AS Object
PRIVATE $sOldVal AS String
PRIVATE $bFreeze AS Boolean

PUBLIC SUB Form_Resize()

DIM iWidth AS Integer

Form element names

When placing a new form element. Gambas gives it a name like "Label1" "Label2" ...

Before you assign a method to the new element, you rename it to "btnStart" or "lstAddressSelect". The first two or three lower case letters should be given according to this definition:

Letter	Type
btn	Button, use btnOK btnCancel for OK, Cancel
chk	CheckBox
cvw	ColumnView
cmb	ComboBox
dwg	DrawingArea
dlg	FontChooser
edt	GambasEditor
frm	Frame
grd	GridView
spl	HSplit
iv	IconView
lbl	Label
lbl	TextLabel
lst	ListBox
lvw	ListView
pan	Panel
img	PictureBox
opt	RadioButton
svw	ScrollView
spb	SpinBox
tab	TabStrip
tim	Timer
txa	TextArea
txt	TextBox
txv	textview
tbt	ToolButton
trv	TreeView
spl	VSplit

A project which uses this style is the Gambas IDE (under /app/src/gambas3 in the source tree). It contains lots of more prefixes for various controls.

Variable Naming Convention by Fabien Bodard

Written by Fabien Bodard

It's simply how you give name to your variables ! What method, to make difference between two type of variables or two type of objects.

You need to adopt a convention.

If you call each variable, according to the impultion of the moment, not only you will have names that you don't remember, but you will search astute variable name at place of searching astute algorithms. A calling convention need to be automatic. In fact, two person that use the same calling convention would have the same variables name.

Most of the time, bad calling convention goes from pair with a bad code.

By default, Gambas give a default name to the widgets, like button1, textbox1, etc... and then incrementing the value when you add a new component in the IDE. But the problem with this system is that your code is really difficult to interpret or to debug...

But all is not lost at this time... i've maybe a soluce for you :-).

The hungarian convention for Gambas

The hungarian convention is a good one. You have probably seen this convention in some Microsoft Visual Basic exemples sources. I don't say it's the best one, but i've use it in some other languages php, fortran, and it got fine on Gambas.

All the users of the hungarian convention that I know have in a first time hated it. But whatever your opinion is, you will not regret having learned to read Hungarian. This convention was created by Charle Simonyi, veteran of developement at Microsoft and and Hungarian of birth. It implies that the variables comprises two parts: a basic type in small letters indicating the kind of variable, and a qualifier with initial in capital letter which distinguishes a variable of the other of the same variables. Then you can add a letter like $ at the beginning to distingish the global variables.

Examples

An integer variable that will be used to locate something
iPos

An integer variable that will be used to locate something in a file and another in a textarea
iFilePos
iLinePos

A form for save a file as...
frmSaveFileAs

Prefix convention for common variables types

variable type	Prefix
Integer	i
Float	f
Boolean	b
Byte	bt
Short	sh
Long	l
Single	sng
Variant	v
Pointer	ptr
String	s
Date	date
Object	o

Prefixe convention for array or collection variable type

variable Type	Prefix
Static array	ar + type prefix
Integer[]	ari
Float[]	arf
Boolean][]	arb
Byte][]	arbt
Short[]	arsh
Long[]	arl
Single[]	arsng
Variant[]	arv
String[]	ars
Date[]	ardate
Object[]	aro
Collection	col

Special types

variable Type	Prefix
File	fi
Process	proc

Some Component prefix example

variable Type	Prefix
Form	frm
TextBox	txtb
TextArea	txta
ListBox	lstb
ComboBox	cbo
Timer	tmr
Button	but
ToggleButton	tglbut
ToolButton	tbut

Gambas Naming Conventions by Gianluigi

Use of the naming convention outlined here is optional but it is strongly encouraged as good programming practice in Gambas.

The Gambas naming convention generally follows Hungarian notation using upper Camel case (also known as Pascal case) with an uppercase or lowercase prefix as a type indicator.

There are a couple of notable exceptions to this. An Action should use all lowercase letters with a dash (hypen) separating words. And, functions and methods are not given a prefix.

Here is a short summary. Use:

Camel case for all base names (except for Actions).
A Prefix of only one uppercase character for Forms, Classes, Modules and Reports.
A Prefix of a single lowercase character for Variables.
A prefix of three lowercase characters for Controls.

All private variable names of a class should additionally be prefixed with $ (dollar sign).

Examples

Camel case

MPrettyCode, Sub GetDateTitle()

Action

save-project, menu-tool

Upper case prefix for Forms, Classes, Modules, and Reports

FMain, CProjectList, MTest, RSales

Variables

aList, bIsAvailable, cHash, fPhi, iCounter, sFirstName

Form Controls and elements

btnCancel, btxSearchNames, lblWiki, cmxParent

Prefixes for variable names

The variable name prefixes listed in the table below are supported by the compiler but are not required.

Type	Prefix
Array	a
Boolean	b
Collection	c
Date	d
Single, Float (floating point)	f
Object (handle)	h
Byte, Short, Integer, Long (integer numbers)	i
An integer storing a number of objects.	n
Pointer	p
Variant	v

Example

PRIVATE $iLast AS Integer
PRIVATE $sLast AS String
PRIVATE $hEditor AS Object

PUBLIC SUB Form_Open()

  Dim dToday As Date = Date(Now)
  Dim aNames As String[] = ["Goofy", "Mikey", "Donald"]
  Dim nI As Integer

  For nI = 0 To aNames.Max
    Print aNames[nI]
  Next

Prefixes for form control and element names

When placing a new Form element. Gambas gives it a name like "Button1" "Button2" ...

Before you assign a method to the new element, you rename it to "btnStart" or "btnNew" ...

Type	Prefix
Button (ToolB., MenuB., RadioB., ColorB.,SwitchB., ToggleB.)	btn
ButtonBox	btx
CheckBox	chx
ColorChooser	clc
DnsClient, FtpClient, HttpClient	cln
ColumnView	clw
ComboBox	cmx
DocumentView	dcw
DrawingArea	dra
DirChooser	drc
DirView	drw
DirBox	drx
DateChooser	dtc
DateBox	dtx
Expander	exp
FileChooser	flc
FileView	flw
FontChooser	fnc
FontBox	fnx
Frame	frm
GridView	grw
HBox	hrx
HtmlView	htw
IconView	icw
ImageView	imw
Label (TextLabel, LCDLabel, URLLabel)	lbl
ListEditor	lse
ListView	lsw
ListBox	lsx
Menu	mnu
MessageView	msw
MaskBox	msx
MovieBox	mvx
PictureBox	pcx
ColorPalette	plt
Panel (HPanel, IconPanel, SidePanel, TabPanel, ToolPanel, VPanel)	pnl
ProgressBar	prb
Printer	prn
FileProperties	prp
ScrollArea	sca
ScrollBar	scb
ServerSocket, UdpSocket	sck
ScrollView	scw
Slider	sld
SliderBox	slx
SpinBar	spb
Splitter, HSplit, VSplit	spl
Spinner	spn
Spring	spr
SpinBox	spx
SerialPort	srp
TabStrip	stp
TableView	tbw
ToolBar	tlb
Timer	tmr
TerminalView	tmw
TimeBox	tmx
TreeView	trw
TextArea	txa
TextEditor, TextEdit	txe
TextView	txw
TextBox	txx
ValueBox	vlx
VBox	vrx
WebView	wbw
Workspace	wrk
Wizard	wzr

Convention

Generally, the three characters of the prefixes of form controls and elements derive from the following convention.

The first character followed by two phonically helpful letters if the name is simple; for example: mnu for Menu

If instead the name is complex, then the first two characters will be determined by the first part of the name, while the last one is based on the element's type:

Name (second part)	Suffix
Area	a
Bar	b
Box	x
Chooser	c
Editor	e
View	w

Exceptions

There are exceptions that take the whole prefix from the second part of the complex name:

Name (second part)	Prefix
Client	cln
Palette	plt
Panel	pnl
Properties	prp
Socket	sck
Strip	stp