Hungarian Notation (Programming)

Front 1

Concept of "operation"

Back 1

considered quite generally here; How is the quantity used? "being the subscript of array A" or "being the second parameter of procedure Position" are operations on quantity x (and A or Position as well). The point is that "integers" x and y are not of the same type if Position (x,y) is legal but Position (y,x) is nonsensical

Front 2

Concept of "type"

Back 2

Set of operations that can be applied to a quantity. Could the same set of operations be applied to the quantities in questions? If so, the types are thought to be the same. If there are operations that apply to a quantity in exclusion of others, the type of the quantity is different.

Front 3

The 4 Naming Rules

Back 3

1.-Quantities are named by their type possibly followed by a qualifier. i.e. : rowFirst
2.-Qualifiers distinguish quantities that are of the same type and that exist within the same naming context.
3.-Simple types are named by short tags that are chosen by the programmer.
4.-Names of constructed types should be constructed from the names of the constituent types.

Front 4

Standard type constructions
Pointer to X.

Back 4

pX

Front 5

Standard type constructions
Difference between two instances of type X. X + dX is of type X.

Back 5

dX

Front 6

Standard type constructions
Count of instances of type X.

Back 6

cX

Front 7

Standard type constructions
An array of Ys indexed by X. Read as "map from X to Y."

Back 7

mpXY

Front 8

Standard type constructions
An array of Xs. Read as "range X." The indices of the array are called:
iX

Back 8

rgX

Front 9

Standard type constructions
(rare) An array indexed by type X. The elements of the array are called:
eX
(rare) Element of the array dnX.

Back 9

dnX

Front 10

Standard type constructions
A group of Xs stored one after another in storage. Used when the X elements are of variable size and standard array indexing would not apply. Elements of the group must be referenced by means other then direct indexing. A storage allocation zone, for example, is a grp of blocks.

Back 10

grpX

Front 11

Standard type constructions
Relative offset to a type X. This is used for field displacements in a data structure with variable size fields. The offset may be given in terms of bytes or words, depending on the base pointer from which the offset is measured.

Back 11

bX

Front 12

Standard type constructions
Size of instances of X in bytes.

Back 12

cbX

Front 13

Standard type constructions
Size of instances of X in words.

Back 13

cwX

Front 14

Standard qualifiers
The first element in an ordered set (interval) of X values.

Back 14

XFirst

Front 15

Standard qualifiers
The last element in an ordered set of X values. XLast is the upper limit of a closed interval, hence the loop continuation condition should be: X <= XLast.

Back 15

XLast

Front 16

Standard qualifiers
The strict upper limit of an ordered set of X values. Loop continuation should be: X < XLim.

Back 16

XLim

Front 17

Standard qualifiers
Strict upper limit for all X values (excepting Max, Mac, and Nil) for all other X: X < XMax. If X values start with X=0, XMax is equal to the number of different X values. The allocated length of a dnx vector, for example, will be typically XMax.

Back 17

XMax

Front 18

Standard qualifiers
The current (as opposed to constant or allocated) upper limit for all X values. If X values start with 0, XMac is the current number of X values.

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XMac
To iterate through a dnx array, for example:
for x=0 step 1 to xMac-1 do ... dnx[x] ...
or
for ix=0 step 1 to ixMac-1 do ... rgx[ix] ...

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Standard qualifiers
A distinguished Nil value of type X. The value may or may not be 0 or -1.

Back 19

XNil

Front 20

Standard qualifiers
Temporary X. An easy way to qualify the second quantity of a given type in a scope.

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XT

Front 21

Some common primitive types
Flag (Boolean, logical). If qualifier is used, it should describe the true state of the flag. Exception: the constants fTrue and fFalse.

Back 21

f

Front 22

Some common primitive types
Word with arbitrary contents.

Back 22

w

Front 23

Some common primitive types
Character, usually in ASCII text.

Back 23

ch

Front 24

Some common primitive types
Byte, not necessarily holding a coded character, more akin to w. Distinguished from the b constructor by the capital letter of the qualifier in immediately following.

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b

Front 25

Some common primitive types
Pointer to first character of a zero terminated string.

Back 25

sz

Front 26

Some common primitive types
Pointer to a string. First byte is the count of characters cch.

Back 26

st

Front 27

Some common primitive types
pp (in heap).

Back 27

h