Sams Teach Yourself C++ in 21 Days

What’s Next 781

21

• Use whitespace to help readability.


• Don’t use spaces between object and array names and their operators (.,->,[]).


• Unary operators are associated with their operands, so don’t put a space between
  them. Do put a space on the side away from the operand. Unary operators include
  !,~,++,--,-,*(for pointers),&(casts), and sizeof.


• Binary operators should have spaces on both sides:+,=,*,/,%,>>,<<,<,>,==,!=,
  &,|,&&,||,?:,=,+=, and so on.


• Don’t use lack of spaces to indicate precedence:
  (4+ 3*2).


• Put a space after commas and semicolons, not before.


• Parentheses should not have spaces on either side.


• Keywords, such as if, should be set off by a space:if (a == b).


• The body of a single-line comment should be set off from the //with a space.


• Place the pointer or reference indicator next to the type name, not the variable
  name:
  char foo;
  int& theInt;
  rather than
  char foo;
  int &theInt;


• Do not declare more than one variable on the same line.

Naming Identifiers ..........................................................................................

The following are guidelines for working with identifier names:

• Identifier names should be long enough to be descriptive.


• Avoid cryptic abbreviations.


• Take the time and energy to spell things out.


• Do not use Hungarian notation. C++ is strongly typed and there is no reason to put
  the type into the variable name. With user-defined types (classes), Hungarian nota-
  tion quickly breaks down. The exceptions to this might be to use a prefix for point-
  ers (p) and references (r), as well as for class member variables (its).


• Short names (i, p, x, and so on) should be used only where their brevity makes the
  code more readable and where the usage is so obvious that a descriptive name is
  not needed. In general, however, you should avoid this. Also, avoid the use of the
  letters i, l, and o as variable names because they are easy to confuse with numbers.