Standard Naming Convention for ASP.NET and C#

Standard Naming Convention for ASP.NET and C#

In programming language naming convention have great benefits to reduce the effort needed to read and understand source code. It provides better understanding in case of reuse code after a long interval of time. It is an initial step for beginner to learn any programming language. It is a very important element. Here I have explained some criteria about naming convention for programmer.

There are different types of naming casing style. First let’s understand different types of casing styles.

• Camel Case (camelCase): First letter of the word is lower case and then each first letter of the part of the word is upper case. Example: numberOfDays

• Pascal Case (PascalCase): First letter of the word is upper case and then each first letter of the part of the word is upper case. Example: DataTable

• Underscode Prefix (_underscore): The word begins with underscore singe and for the rest of the word use camelCase rule. Example: _strFirstName

• Hungarian Notation: First letter of the word is about its data type and rest of the word is camelCase. Example: iStudentNumber (i=integer)

• Uppercase: All letters of the word are uppercase. Example: ID, PI

Naming Convention Guidelines

1.      Private Variables

Use Camel Case for private variables.

Example: studentName

2.       Local Variables

Use Camel Case for local variables.

Example: studentName

3.       Method

Use Pascal Case for method name.

Example: public string HelloWorld { ... }

4.       Property/ Enumerations

Use Pascal Case for Property/Enumerations.

Example: StudentName, StudentAddress

5.       Parameter

Use Camel Case for parameter

Example: void SayHello(string studentName)

{

     string fullMessage = "Hello " + studentName;

}

6.       Namespace

Use Pascal Case for namespace. Use the company name followed by the technology name and optionally the feature and design as follows:

CompanyName.TechnologyName[.Feature][.Design]

Example: CybarLab.Database, System.Web.UI, System.Windows.Forms

7.       Class

Use Pascal Case for class

Example:

public class HelloWorld { ... }

8.       Interface

Use Pascal Case for interface. Use Prefix “I” with interface name, to indicate that the type is an interface. Do not use the underscore character (_).

Example: IServiceProvider, IMemberDirectory

9.       Event

Use Pascal Case for event.

Example: protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {…….}

10.    Exception

Visual Studio .NET use “e” parameter for the event parameter to the call. To avoid conflicting please use “ex" as a standard variable name for an exception object.

Example:

catch (Exception ex)

{

                        // Handle Exception

}

11.    Constant

Use uppercase for constant variables with words separated by underscores. It is recommended to use a grouping naming schema.

Example (for group AP_WIN):

AP_WIN_MIN_WIDTH, AP_WIN_MAX_WIDTH

12.    Avoid abbreviations longer than 5 characters

13.    Avoid using abbreviations unless the full name is excessive

Example:

Good: string student

Not good: string stu

14.    Use meaningful, descriptive words for naming variables

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

16.    Avoid naming conflicts with existing .NET Framework namespaces or types

17.    Do not include the parent class name within a property name

Example

Good: Customer.Name

Not good: Customer.CustomerName

18.    Use Pascal Case for file names

19.    Method name should tell you what it does

20.    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.

Naming Convention of ASP.NET Control

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.

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

In summery we can say that use Pascal Case for anything which is public. Try to avoid underscore “_” or hyphen “-”.

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