Advanced Computer Science Lab Coding Style & Documentation

Indentation Tabs are 8 characters, so indentations are also 8 characters. if you need more than 3 levels of indentation you should fix your program.

Indentation Easy to read Used to warn when functions are nested too deep

Placing Braces preferred way ( Kernighan and Ritchie), is to put the opening brace last on the line, and put the closing brace first Functions:

Placing Braces Exceptions for closing bracket on its own line:

Naming C programmers do not use cute names like ThisVariableIsATemporaryCounter BUT rather “tmp” GLOBAL variables (to be used only if you _really_ need them) need to have descriptive names, as do global functions

Naming function that counts the number of active users GOOD:"count_active_users()" BAD:"cntusr()" LOCAL variable names ->short BAD: loop_counter GOOD: i or j

Functions Short & Sweet Max 1-2 screens of text (80x24) maximum length of a function is inversely proportional to the complexity and indentation level 5-10 local vars or something’s WRONG =>rethink, split in smaller pieces

Commenting Good Danger: over commenting DON’T explain HOW code works BUT WHAT it does (&WHY) Not too many comments inside function, BUT at the head

Classes- Suggestions public variables must begin with m like mFooVar (m=member) protected variables must begin with mt, like mtFooVar and methods with t, like tFooNum(). (t=protected) private variables must begin with mv, like mvFooVar and methods with v, like vFooLone(). (v stands=private)

Classes- Suggestions All public, protected and private variables must begin with uppercase after m like F in mFooVar. All pointer variables must be prefixed with p, like Public variables mpFooVar and methods like FooNum() Protected variables mtpFooVar and methods with t like tFooNum() Private variables mvpFooVar and methods with v like vFooNum()

Classes- Suggestions

You have made a mess… Use “indent” with "-kr -i8" (stands for "K&R, 8 character indents") See “man indent” for more Indent does not fix bad programming!

Documentation Style Standard C++ Comments -Allow maintenance of code by people not involved in its development. -Allow understanding of requirements, inputs and outputs, algorithms, and software design techniques, when reviewing code. -Allow understanding of code structure for purposes of reusability

Doxygen mainly extracted from the comments in header files description of a class is placed before the class statement (/**.... */ or ///… ) Can embed HTML @param > doxygen –g doxyfile.cfg > doxygen doxyfile.cfg