| Author: | Clay Sweetser, Dominik Picheta |
|---|---|
| Version: | 2.3.1 |
Introduction
Although Nim supports a variety of code and formatting styles, it is nevertheless beneficial that certain community efforts, such as the standard library, should follow a consistent set of style guidelines when suitable. This enhancement proposal aims to list a series of guidelines that the standard library should follow.
Note that there can be exceptions to these rules. Nim being as flexible as it is, there will be parts of this style guide that don't make sense in certain contexts. Furthermore, just as Python's style guide changes over time, this style guide will too.
These rules will only be enforced for contributions to the Nim codebase and official projects, such as the Nim compiler, the standard library, and the various official tools such as C2Nim.
Style Guidelines
Spacing and Whitespace Conventions
- Lines should be no longer than 80 characters. Limiting the amount of information present on each line makes for more readable code - the reader has smaller chunks to process.
- Two spaces should be used for indentation of blocks; tabstops are not allowed (the compiler enforces this). Using spaces means that the appearance of code is more consistent across editors. Unlike spaces, tabstop width varies across editors, and not all editors provide means of changing this width.
Although use of whitespace for stylistic reasons other than the ones endorsed by this guide are allowed, careful thought should be put into such practices. Not all editors support automatic alignment of code sections, and re-aligning long sections of code by hand can quickly become tedious.
# This is bad, as the next time someone comes # to edit this code block, they # must re-align all the assignments again: type WordBool* = int16 CalType* = int ... # 5 lines later CalId* = int LongLong* = int64 LongLongPtr* = ptr LongLong
Naming Conventions
Type identifiers should be in PascalCase. All other identifiers should be in camelCase with the exception of constants which may use PascalCase but are not required to.
# Constants can start with either a lower case or upper case letter. const aConstant = 42 const FooBar = 4.2 var aVariable = "Meep" # Variables must start with a lowercase letter. # Types must start with an uppercase letter. type FooBar = object
For constants coming from a C/C++ wrapper, ALL_UPPERCASE are allowed, but ugly. (Why shout CONSTANT? Constants do no harm, variables do!)
When naming types that come in value, pointer, and reference varieties, use a regular name for the variety that is to be used the most, and add a "Obj", "Ref", or "Ptr" suffix for the other varieties. If there is no single variety that will be used the most, add the suffixes to the pointer variants only. The same applies to C/C++ wrappers.
type Handle = object # Will be used most often fd: int64 HandleRef = ref Handle # Will be used less often
Exception and Error types should have the "Error" or "Defect" suffix.
type ValueError = object of CatchableError AssertionDefect = object of Defect Foo = object of Exception # bad style, try to inherit CatchableError or Defect
Unless marked with the {.pure.} pragma, members of enums should have an identifying prefix, such as an abbreviation of the enum's name.
type PathComponent = enum pcDir pcLinkToDir pcFile pcLinkToFile
Non-pure enum values should use camelCase whereas pure enum values should use PascalCase.
type PathComponent {.pure.} = enum Dir LinkToDir File LinkToFile
- In the age of HTTP, HTML, FTP, TCP, IP, UTF, WWW it is foolish to pretend these are somewhat special words requiring all uppercase. Instead treat them as what they are: Real words. So it's parseUrl rather than parseURL, checkHttpHeader instead of checkHTTPHeader etc.
- Operations like mitems or mpairs (or the now deprecated mget) that allow a mutating view into some data structure should start with an m.
- When both in-place mutation and 'returns transformed copy' are available the latter is a past participle of the former:
- reverse and reversed in algorithm
- sort and sorted
- rotate and rotated
- When the 'returns transformed copy' version already exists like strutils.replace an in-place version should get an -In suffix (replaceIn for this example).
- Use subjectVerb, not verbSubject, e.g.: fileExists, not existsFile.
The stdlib API is designed to be easy to use and consistent. Ease of use is measured by the number of calls to achieve a concrete high level action. The ultimate goal is that the programmer can guess a name.
The library uses a simple naming scheme that makes use of common abbreviations to keep the names short but meaningful.
| English word | To use | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| initialize | initFoo | initializes a value type Foo |
| new | newFoo | initializes a reference type Foo via new or a value type Foo with reference semantics. |
| this or self | self | for method like procs, e.g.: proc fun(self: Foo, a: int) rationale: self is more unique in English than this, and foo would not be DRY. |
| find | find | should return the position where something was found; for a bool result use contains |
| contains | contains | often short for find() >= 0 |
| append | add | use add instead of append |
| compare | cmp | should return an int with the < 0 == 0 or > 0 semantics; for a bool result use sameXYZ |
| put | put, []= | consider overloading []= for put |
| get | get, [] | consider overloading [] for get; consider to not use get as a prefix: len instead of getLen |
| length | len | also used for number of elements |
| size | size, len | size should refer to a byte size |
| capacity | cap | |
| memory | mem | implies a low-level operation |
| items | items | default iterator over a collection |
| pairs | pairs | iterator over (key, value) pairs |
| delete | delete, del | del is supposed to be faster than delete, because it does not keep the order; delete keeps the order |
| remove | delete, del | inconsistent right now |
| include | incl | |
| exclude | excl | |
| command | cmd | |
| execute | exec | |
| environment | env | |
| variable | var | |
| value | value, val | val is preferred, inconsistent right now |
| executable | exe | |
| directory | dir | |
| path | path | path is the string "/usr/bin" (for example), dir is the content of "/usr/bin"; inconsistent right now |
| extension | ext | |
| separator | sep | |
| column | col, column | col is preferred, inconsistent right now |
| application | app | |
| configuration | cfg | |
| message | msg | |
| argument | arg | |
| object | obj | |
| parameter | param | |
| operator | opr | |
| procedure | proc | |
| function | func | |
| coordinate | coord | |
| rectangle | rect | |
| point | point | |
| symbol | sym | |
| literal | lit | |
| string | str | |
| identifier | ident | |
| indentation | indent |
Coding Conventions
The return statement should ideally be used when its control-flow properties are required. Use a procedure's implicit result variable whenever possible. This improves readability.
proc repeat(text: string, x: int): string = result = "" for i in 0..x: result.add($i)
- Use a proc when possible, only using the more powerful facilities of macros, templates, iterators, and converters when necessary.
- Use the let statement (not the var statement) when declaring variables that do not change within their scope. Using the let statement ensures that variables remain immutable, and gives those who read the code a better idea of the code's purpose.
Conventions for multi-line statements and expressions
Tuples which are longer than one line should indent their parameters.
type LongTupleA = tuple[ wordyTupleMemberOne: int, wordyTupleMemberTwo: string, wordyTupleMemberThree: float]
Similarly, any procedure and procedure type declarations that are longer than one line should do the same thing. Double indent may be used to distinguish them from the body that follows - this applies to all constructs with a body (if, while, etc).
type EventCallback = proc( timeReceived: Time, errorCode: int, event: Event, output: var string) proc lotsOfArguments( argOne: string, argTwo: int, argThree: float, argFour: proc(), argFive: bool, argSix: int ): GenericType[int, string] {.heyLookALongPragma.} = discard
Multi-line procedure calls should continue indented (like multi-line procedure declarations).
startProcess( nimExecutable, currentDirectory, compilerArguments environment, processOptions)
Previous versions of this guide advocated vertical alignment along the opening brace / parenthesis - both styles are permissible with a preference for the current style in new code.
Miscellaneous
- Use a..b instead of a .. b, except when b contains an operator, for example a .. -3. Likewise with a..<b, a..^b and other operators starting with ...
- Use std prefix for standard library modules, namely use std/os for single module and use std/[os, sysrand, posix] for multiple modules.
Prefer multiline triple quote literals to start with a newline; it's semantically identical (it's a feature of triple quote literals) but clearer because it aligns with the next line:
use this:
let a = """ foo bar """
instead of:
let a = """foo bar """
- A getter API for a private field foo should preferably be named foo, not getFoo. A getter-like API should preferably be named getFoo, not foo if:
- the API has side effects
- or the cost is not O(1)
For in between cases, there is no clear guideline.
- Likewise with a setter API, replacing foo with foo= and getFoo with setFoo in the above text.