celestia/coding-standards.html

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<head><title>Celestia Coding Standards</title>
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<p>
<span class="documenttitle">Celestia Coding Standards</span><br>
I'm not religious about any particular indentation style or naming
conventions for code, but I do believe that it is very important that
whatever standards are chosen are used consistently throughout a project.
This document describes the coding style already in use throughout the
Celestia code base. As Celestia grows, there will undoubtedly be
clarifications, additions, and edits made to this document, and I encourage
suggestions. However, no recommendations will be entertained which require
reformatting or renaming huge chunks of the existing code. No stylistic
convention is so inherently superior that it's worth all that hassle.
</p>
<div>
<span class="sectiontitle">Files</span><br>
<p>
The names of Celestia source files and data files are always lower case.
Unix is a case-sensitive OS, but Windows is not; using strictly lower case
filenames reduces confusion. The extension .cpp should be used for all C++
sources files. A process is set up to run nightly and cull all .C, .c++,
and .cc files from the CVS tree.
</p>
<p>
You should "guard defines" around include files to prevent multiple
inclusion of headers. Take care to assure that the guard macros will
be unique. The scheme for naming them in Celestia is
_&lt;subdirectory&gt;_&lt;filename&gt;_H_ Here's an example:
<blockquote>
<pre style="code">
// This header file is star.h in the celengine subdirectory.
#ifndef _CELENGINE_STAR_H_
#define _CELENGINE_STAR_H_
class Star
{
...
};
#endif // _CELENGINE_STAR_H_
</pre>
</blockquote>
Since celengine is a library, it is important include the subdirectory in the
guard macro name in order to make macro name collisions less likely.
</pre>
</blockquote>
</p>
</div>
<br><br>
<div>
<span class="sectiontitle">Language</span><br>
Celestia is unrepentantly a C++ project. C++ has many language features
which replace unsafe or awkward constructions in C; use the C++ features
wherever possible (which should be everywhere except in some cases where
you need to call functions from external libraries.)
<p><span class="subsectiontitle">STL</span><br>
Celestia makes heavy use of the Standard Template Library. Resist the urge
to write your own dynamic array or tree classes--you can almost certainly
use STL's vector or map. Don't do this in a header:
<blockquote>
<pre style="code">
#include &lt;string&gt;
using namespace std;
extern string foo;
</pre>
</blockquote>
Instead, when referring to an STL class or function in a header,
prefix it with std. Implementation modules shouldn't be forced to import
the entire std namespace just because they include a particular header.
The right way:
<blockquote>
<pre style="code">
#include &lt;string&gt;
extern std::string foo;
</pre>
</blockquote>
</p>
<p><span class="subsectiontitle">Strings</span><br>
Use C++'s string class rather than C-style zero terminated strings. The
string class is safer, more convenient, and in many cases, more efficient
than C strings. You can always call string::c_str() for a pointer to a
zero terminated string to pass to external API functions that require one,
but it's important to keep in mind that c_str() does not allocate a new
string. Methods which are declared to accept C++ string parameters can
also accept C strings, because the string class's string(char*) constructor
is automatically applied.
<blockquote>
<pre style="code">
void foo(const string& s)
{
...
}
void bar()
{
string text("Test");
// This will work properly:
foo(text);
// . . . and so will this:
foo("Test");
}
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p><span class="subsectiontitle">Casts</span><br>
Type casting should be avoided as much as possible. However, it is still
occasionally necessary to use it, particularly when calling external API
functions. When you do have to cast, favor C++ style casts
(reinterpret_cast, static_cast, and const_cast) over C casts. While
they're a pain to type, they're much easier to notice when browsing the code
(since casts are the source of so many bugs, it's important that they're
as obvious as possible.)<br><br>
<blockquote>
<pre style="code">
UINT CALLBACK DialogProc(HWND hDlg, UINT message,
WPARAM wParam, LPARAM lParam)
{
HWND hwnd;
// Bad cast
hwnd = (HWND) lParam;
// Better cast
hwnd = reinterpret_cast&lt;HWND&gt;(lParam);
}
</pre>
</blockquote>
<br>
You do not need to bother with C++ style casts when casting between
numeric types.
</p>
<p><span class="subsectiontitle">Const</span><br>
Use const liberally. Properly const'd programs are safer. Const
declarations act as documentation for developers and hints for the compiler
to help it produce more efficient code. All reference parameters to a
function should be declared const unless they are intended to be modified
by the function. Make a point of declaring const any method which does not
modify class members. When iterating through the members of a container,
use const_iterator instead of iterator unless you intend to modify the
elements of the container.
</p>
<p><span class="subsectiontitle">Reference Parameters</span><br>
Favor passing parameters as references to passing them as pointers. If it is
not expected that the value of the parameter will ever be NULL, you should
certainly use a reference instead of a pointer. The current Celestia code
isn't as consistent about pointers vs. references as it should be.
</p>
<p><span class="subsectiontitle">I/O</span><br>
While C++ I/O is usually preferred, C style I/O with printf/scanf is also
also acceptable. In many cases, printf is simply more convenient and
produces much more readable code than C++'s operator overloading based I/O.
The gets function from the C standard library should never, ever be used.
It's unsafe, and gets related buffer overflows have been the source of
many security holes.
</p>
</div>
<br>
<div>
<span class="sectiontitle">Indentation</span><br>
<ul>
<li>Always set your editor to use spaces for indentation. Text editors
interpret tabs in various incompatible ways, but a space is always a space.
<li>The bodies of functions, compound statements, and class definitions
should be indented four spaces.
<li>The braces around a function or compound statement should be on lines
by themselves:
<pre style="code">
if (x)
{
cout << "The value of x is: " << x;
}
</pre>
<li>Labels of switch statements are not indented, but the body is:
<pre style="code">
switch (foo)
{
case 1:
x = 1;
break;
case 2:
x = 4;
break;
default:
x = 0;
break;
}
</pre>
<li>Access control labels are indented one space:
<pre style="code">
class Foo
{
public:
Foo();
private:
int x;
};
</pre>
</ul>
</div>
<br>
<div>
<span class="sectiontitle">Naming</span>
<ul>
<li>Use capitalization not underscores to separate words in class and
variable names.
<li>Class names should start with a capital letter. The first letter of each
word within the class name should also be capitalized. Class names should
not be prefixed with a C.
<pre style="code">
// Celestia class names
class Renderer;
class UniversalCoord;
// Not Celestia class names:
class RENDERER;
class renderer;
class Universal_Coord;
class CUniversalCoord;
</pre>
<li>Method names are written using the class name conventions except with
the first letter in lower case.
<pre style="code">
// Celestia method names
void render();
int getValue();
void setAbsoluteMagnitude(float);
// Not Celestia method names:
void Render();
int get_value();
void Set_Absolute_Magnitude(float);
</pre>
<li>Functions both static and global use the class name conventions.
<li>Enum values also use the class name conventions.
<li>Macros should be all caps, with words separated by underscores.
<pre style="code">
// Celestia macros
#define INFINITE_MOUSE
#define BROKEN_SSTREAM
// Not Celestia macros
#define InfiniteMouse
#define INFINITEMOUSE
#define broken_sstream
</pre>
<li>Variable names do not contain type information, i.e. Hungarian and other
type-based naming conventions are not used. There are a few important
exceptions. Convenience typedefs for class templates in Celestia's vector
math library do contain type informations. For example,
Vector3&lt;float&gt; is Vec3f and Matrix4&lt;double&gt; is Mat4d.
</body>
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