C# Coding Standards Series – Naming Conventions

Terminology and Definitions for Naming Conventions:

Camel Case (camelCase): The first letter of the word is lower case and then each first letter of the part of the word is upper case;

Pascal Case (PascalCase): The first letter of the word is upper case and then each first letter of the part of the word is upper case;

Underscode Prefix (_underscore): The word begins with underscore char and for the rest of the word use camelCase rule;

General Rules

1. Use Pascal Case for Class names:
Ex: public class HelloWorld { ... };

2. Use Pascal Case for Method names:
Ex: public void SayHello(string name) { ... };

3. Use Camel Case for variables and method parameters:
Ex: int totalCount = 0;
void SayHello(string name)
{
     string fullMessage = "Hello " + name;
     //...
}

4. Avoid all upper case or all lower case names;

5. Do not use Hungarian notation:
Ex: string m_sName; (the prefix m_ means that is a member variable and s means that is a string data type);

6. Avoid abbreviations longer than 5 characters;

7. Avoid using abbreviations unless the full name is excessive:
Ex: Good: string address;           
    Not good: string addr;

8. Use meaningfull, descriptive words for naming variables;

9. Try to prefix Boolean variables with “Can”, “Is” or “Has”;

10. Do not use Underscore Prefix for local variables names;

11. All member variables must use Underscore Prefix so that they can be identified from other local variables names;

12. Avoid naming conflicts with existing .NET Framework namespaces or types;

13. Do not include the parent class name within a property name:
Ex: Good: Customer.Name;             
    Not good: Customer.CustomerName;

14. When defining a root namespace, use a Product, a Company or a Developer name as the root:
Ex: NorthwindApplication.Utilities;

15. Use Pascal Case for file names;

16. Method name should tell you what it does;

17. A method should do only “one job”. Do not combine multiple jobs in one method even if those jobs have very few lines of code.
Ex:
protected void SaveCustomerName(string customerName)
{
   //code here...
}


Naming Conventions for ASP.NET Controls

In general, naming ASP.NET controls is made using Camel Case naming convention, where the prefix of the name is the abbreviation of the control type name.

Abbreviation	ASP.NET Control
STANDARD CONTROLS
btn	Button
cb	CheckBox
cbl	CheckBoxList
ddl	DropDownList
fu	FileUpload
hdn	HiddenField
lnk	Hyperlink
img	Image
ibtn(btn)	ImageButton
lbl	Label
lbtn(btn)	LinkButton
lb	ListBox
lit	Literal
mv	MultiView
pnl	Panel
ph	PlaceHolder
rb	RadioButton
rbl	RadioButtonList
tbl	Table
txt	TextBox
v	View
DATA CONTROLS
dtl	DataList
dp	DataPager
dtv	DetailsView
ets	EntityDataSource
fv	FormView
gv	GridView
lds	LinqDataSource
lv	ListView
ods	ObjectDataSource
qe	QueryExtender
rpt	Repeater
smd	SiteMapDataSource
sds	SqlDataSource
xds	XmlDataSource
VALIDATION CONTROLS
cpv	CompareValidator
ctv	CustomValidator
rv	RangeValidator
rev	RegularExpressionValidator
rfv	RequiredFieldValidator
vs	ValidationSummary