Is a variable named i unacceptable? [closed]

Answer 1

As long as you are either using i to count loops, or part of an index that goes from 0 (or 1 depending on PL) to n, then I would say i is fine.

Otherwise its probably easy to name i something meaningful it its more than just an index.

Answer 2

As long as you're using it temporarily inside a simple loop and it's obvious what you're doing, sure. That said, is there no other short word you can use instead?

i is widely known as a loop iterator, so you're actually more likely to confuse maintenance programmers if you use it outside of a loop, but if you use something more descriptive (like filecounter), it makes code nicer.

Answer 3

Depends on the context I suppose. If you where looping through a set of Objects in some collection then it should be fairly obvious from the context what you are doing.

for(int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
    // i is well known here to be the index
    objectCollection[i].SomeProperty = someValue;
}

However if it is not immediately clear from the context what it is you are doing, or if you are making modifications to the index you should use a variable name that is more indicative of the usage.

for(int currentRow = 0; currentRow < numRows; currentRow++)
{
    for(int currentCol = 0; currentCol < numCols; currentCol++)
    {
        someTable[currentRow][currentCol] = someValue;
    }
} 

Answer 4

"i" means "loop counter" to a programmer. There's nothing wrong with it.

Answer 5

i is fine, but something like this is not:

for (int i = 0; i < 10; i++)
{
    for (int j = 0; j < 10; j++)
    {
        string s = datarow[i][j].ToString(); // or worse
    }
}

Very common for programmers to inadvertently swap the i and the j in the code, especially if they have bad eyesight or their Windows theme is "hotdog". This is always a "code smell" for me - it's kind of rare when this doesn't get screwed up.

Answer 6

It helps if you name it something that describes what it is looping through. But I usually just use i.