CodingStyle.md

Indentation

4 spaces are used for indentation Using spaces instead of using tabs

Declaring variables

• Suggest declaring each variable on a separate line
• Avoid meaningless names (e.g. “a”, “rbarr”, “nughdeget”)
• Single character variable names are only okay for counters and temporaries, where the purpose of the variable is obvious
• Wait when declaring a variable until it is needed
• Variables and functions start with a lower-case letter. Each consecutive word in a variable’s name starts with an upper-case letter
• Avoid abbreviations
• Classes always start with an upper-case letter. Public classes start with a ‘Q’ (QRgb) followed by an upper case letter. Public functions most often start with a ‘q’ (qRgb).
• Acronyms are camel-cased (e.g. QXmlStreamReader, not QXMLStreamReader).

Whitespace

• Use blank lines to group statements together where suited

• Always use only one blank line

• For pointers or references, always use a single space between the type and ‘’ or ‘&’, but no space between the ‘’ or ‘&’ and the variable name.

• No space after a cast

• Avoid C-style casts when possible

    // Wrong
    char* blockOfMemory = (char* ) malloc(data.size());
       
    // Correct
    char *blockOfMemory = reinterpret_cast<char *>(malloc(data.size()));
  

• Do not put multiple statements on one line. By extension, use a new line for the body of a control flow statement.

Parentheses

• Use parentheses to group expressions:

    // Wrong
    if (a && b || c)
       
    // Correct
    if ((a && b) || c)
       
    // Wrong
    a + b & c
       
    // Correct
    (a + b) & c
  

Switch statements

• The case labels are in the same column as the switch

• Every case must have a break (or return) statement at the end or a comment to indicate that there’s intentionally no break, unless another case follows immediately.

    switch (myEnum)
    {
    case Value1:
        doSomething();
        break;
    case Value2:
    case Value3:
        doSomethingElse();
        // fall through
    default:
        defaultHandling();
        break;
    }
  

Jump statements (break, continue, return, and goto)

• Do not put ‘else’ after jump statements:

    // Wrong
    if (thisOrThat)
        return;
    else
        somethingElse();
  
    // Correct
    if (thisOrThat)
        return;
    somethingElse();
  

Line breaks

• Keep lines shorter than 100 characters; wrap if necessary

• Operators go at the end of wrapped lines.

        if (longExpression +
            otherLongExpression +
            otherOtherLongExpression)
        {
        }