Question about MS's naming conventions..

[David Sandor]

I have been looking at the source code for the CLR (rotor code)... I have
some questions about the naming conventions that Microsoft is using as I
have found what appear to be inconsistencies (or I simply have not figured
it out.)

Take the class definition:

[Serializable()] public class SortedList : IDictionary, ICloneable

{

private Object[] keys;

private Object[] values;

private int _size;

private int version;

private IComparer comparer;

private KeyList keyList;

private ValueList valueList;
private const int _defaultCapacity = 16;

I understand that privates are camel-case (lower case first), however why
does _size employ an underscore? Does the underscore implicate a specific
use?

Additionally in other classes (System.IO.File.cs) they use a method defined
as __Error (2 underscores then uppercase camel-cased). Is this because
__Error is a native/system method/function/import?

Thanks for your help,

David Sandor

[Jon Skeet]

David Sandor <dsandor@_NOSPAM_emailanywhere.net> wrote:

<snip>

I understand that privates are camel-case (lower case first), however why
does _size employ an underscore? Does the underscore implicate a specific
use?

I suspect it implies that different developers worked on the code, to
be honest... I don't believe MS actually suggests one way or another.
Personally I name my member variables without an underscore, and have
never made the mistake of confusing a member variable with a local
variable, which is the charge often leveled against this convention.
Then again, that might be to do with keeping methods nice and short,
which is a good thing for many other reasons :)

--
Jon Skeet - <sk***@pobox.com>
http://www.pobox.com/~skeet/
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