naming

Is there a standard acceptable convention for parameters in Java to straightforward constructors and setters? ( I've seen the answer for C++ , but practices are often different between the two communities) Suppose that I have a class C with a foo field. I have commonly seen the following three options: 1) Use the actual field name with an underscore: public C(Type foo_) { foo = foo_; } public void setFoo(Type foo_) { foo = foo_; } 2) Use the actual field name, just use "this" in setting: public C(Type foo) { this.foo = foo; } public void setFoo(Type foo) { this.foo = foo; } 3) Completely

I always thought that a function prototype must contain the parameters of the function and their names. However, I just tried this out: int add(int,int); int main() { std::cout << add(3,1) << std::endl; } int add(int x, int y) { return x + y; } And it worked! I even tried compiling with extreme over-caution: g++ -W -Wall -Werror -pedantic test.cpp And it still worked. So my question is, if you don't need parameter names in function prototypes, why is it so common to do so? Is there any purpose to this? Does it have something to do with the signature of the function? No, these are not necessary

I'm creating a macro in C++ that declares a variable and assigns some value to it. Depending on how the macro is used, the second occurrence of the macro can override the value of the first variable. For instance: #define MY_MACRO int my_variable_[random-number-here] = getCurrentTime(); The other motivation to use that is to avoid selecting certain name to the variable so that it be the same as a name eventually chosen by the developer using the macro. Is there a way to generate random variable names inside a macro in C++? -- Edit -- I mean unique but also random once I can use my macro twice

What rules do you use to name your variables? Where are single letter vars allows? How much info do you put in the name? how about for example code? what are your preferred meaningless variable names? (after foo & bar) why are they spelled "foo" and "bar" rather than FUBAR function startEditing(){ if (user.canEdit(currentDocument)){ editorControl.setEditMode(true); setButtonDown(btnStartEditing); } } Should read like a narrative work. One rule I always follow is this: if a variable encodes a value that is in some particular units, then those units have to be part of the variable name. Example:

I'm not asking about general syntactic rules for file names. I mean gotchas that jump out of nowhere and bite you. For example, trying to name a file "COM<n>" on Windows? Jacob T. Nielsen From: http://www.grouplogic.com/knowledge/index.cfm/fuseaction/view_Info/docID/111 . The following characters are invalid as file or folder names on Windows using NTFS: / ? < > \ : * | " and any character you can type with the Ctrl key. In addition to the above illegal characters the caret ^ is also not permitted under Windows Operating Systems using the FAT file system. Under Windows using the FAT file

When I see the assembly code of a C app, like this: emacs hello.c clang -S -O hello.c -o hello.s cat hello.s Function names are prefixed with an underscore (e.g. callq _printf ). Why is this done and what advantages does it have? Example: hello.c #include <stdio.h> #include <stdlib.h> #include <string.h> int main() { char *myString = malloc(strlen("Hello, World!") + 1); memcpy(myString, "Hello, World!", strlen("Hello, World!") + 1); printf("%s", myString); return 0; } hello.s _main: ; Here Leh_func_begin0: pushq %rbp Ltmp0: movq %rsp, %rbp Ltmp1: movl $14, %edi callq _malloc ; Here movabsq