Do you name your arrays using plural or singular in PHP? [closed]

Answer 1

Name should always convey as much information as possible in case a reader is not familiar with the type declaration. An array or collection should therefore be named in the plural.

I personally find $name[1] to be misleading, since it means "the 1st element of name" which doesn't make English sense.

Answer 2

Always plural. Same for lists of any other datatype that can hold more than one element.

Answer 3

I use the plural form. Then I can do something like:

$name = $names[1];

Answer 4

Plural although the teach you to do it singular in school so you can say:

value[0] = 42;

and really if you think about it that does make more sense than:

values[0] = 42

say it out loud if you don't believe me. Regardless I do use plurals so that I can easily tell when I am scanning through code. That also seems to be the standard that people are using these days.

Answer 5

Plural.

sort(name)
sort(names)

Clearly, only plural makes sense here.

And then, here:

name[1]
names[1]

Both would make sense in this context.

Therefore, plural is the only one that makes sense when referencing the whole collection and when referencing one item from the collection.

Answer 6

Plural for me.

For all the reasons given above and because the agreed conventions where I work (that I contributed to creating) require plurals for arrays / lists / vectors etc.

Although plural naming can cause some anomalies in some cases the majority case is that it provides enhanced clarity and code that is easier to scan read without that annoying feeling of your mind catching on a strange construction and interrupting the flow while you go back to unsnag your brain from whatever tripped it up.