Naming Conventions for .NET / C# Projects

Martin Zahn, Akadia AG, 20.03.2003

The original of this document was developed by the Microsoft special interest group. We made some addons.

This document explains the naming conventions that should be used with .NET projects.

A consistent naming pattern is one of the most important elements of predictability and discoverability in a managed class library. Widespread use and understanding of these naming guidelines should eliminate unclear code and make it easier for developers to understand shared code.

We define three types of capitalization styles:

Pascal case

The first letter in the identifier and the first letter of each subsequent concatenated word are capitalized.

Example:

BackColor, DataSet

Camel case

The first letter of an identifier is lowercase and the first letter of each subsequent concatenated word is capitalized.

Example:

numberOfDays, isValid

Uppercase

All letters in the identifier are capitalized.

Example:

ID, PI

Hungarian notation is any of a variety of standards for organizing a computer program by selecting a schema for naming your variables so that their type is readily available to someone familiar with the notation. It is in fact a commenting technique.

Example:

strFirstName, iNumberOfDays

There are different opinions about using this kind of type notation in programming nowadays. Some say that it’s useful, and it should be used everywhere to enhance clarity of your code. Others say it just obfuscates your code, because it has no real advantage in modern programming environments.

Our point of view is a moderated one: use it wisely, meaning, we only use Hungarian notation for private or local variables, that are only accessible and interesting to the programmer of the class.

Don’t use it with public variables, properties or parameters in methods, because they are exposed to the outside world. Someone who uses your classes and accesses properties of your class, is not interested in type, but just wants to use them.

In the .NET framework, there are a lot of types, so we extended and adapted the Hungarian notation with our own type notation.

1).  Private Variables (Fields in C#) Naming Guidelines

Naming guidelines

Prefix private variables with a "_" and Hungarian-style notation.

Case guidelines

Use camel case as a general rule, or uppercase for very small words

Example:

_strFirstName, _dsetEmployees

// Field
private OleDbConnection _connection;

// Property
public OleDbConnection Connection
{
  get { return _connection; }
  set { _connection = value; }
}

2).  Local Variables Naming Guidelines

Naming guidelines

Prefix private or local variables with Hungarian-style notation.

Case guidelines

Use camel case as a general rule, or uppercase for very small words

Example:

strFirstName, dsetEmployees

3).  Namespace Naming Guidelines

Naming guidelines

The general rule for naming namespaces is to use the company name followed by the technology name and optionally the feature and design as follows:

CompanyName.TechnologyName[.Feature][.Design]