When is a function name too long?

Question

I try to be rather descriptive with my function names, where possible. This occasionally results in function names in the twenty to thirty character range such as \"GetActionFr

Answer 1

If a compiler has some limitations on variable names, it's often 64 or 128 characters or somewhere in-between. In the past, 32 characters have also been popular. If they do have a limit, they often just take the first n characters and ignore the rest.

General rule is that the function name provides a very short description of what it's doing. Most of such descriptions should easily fit within 32 characters. (Use CamelCase to separate words.) Since most IDE's now provide Code Completion, making errors with function names does tend to be rare. But do make it yourself easier by making sure most functions differ from each other with the first 8 characters. Something like DateCalculationAddMonth, DateCalculationAddWeek, DateCalculationAddYear and DateCalculationAddDay should be avoided. Use AddMonthDateCalculation, AddWeekDateCalculation, AddYearDateCalculation and AddDayDateCalculation. (Btw, these are silly examples but I hope you understand my drift.)

Actually, it might be better to add (group) your functions to a separate class. With above silly example, you could just create a class DateCalculation and add four (static/class) functions (AddMonth, AddWeek, AddYear and AddDay) to that class. Basically, this would be more useful when you have many similar functions which would all have very long names if you don't group them together in separate classes.