this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2023
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Programming

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A quick tip for better variable names (programming.dev)
submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Whenever you store a value that has a unit in a variable, config option or CLI switch, include the unit in the name. So:

  • maxRequestSize => maxRequestSizeBytes
  • elapsedTime => elapsedSeconds
  • cacheSize => cacheSizeMB
  • chargingTime => chargingTimeHours
  • fileSizeLimit => fileSizeLimitGB
  • temperatureThreshold => temperatureThresholdCelsius
  • diskSpace => diskSpaceTerabytes
  • flightAltitude => flightAltitudeFeet
  • monitorRefreshRate => monitorRefreshRateHz
  • serverResponseTimeout => serverResponseTimeoutMs
  • connectionSpeed => connectionSpeedMbps

EDIT: I know it’s better to use types to represent units. Please don’t write yet another comment about it. You can find my response to that point here: https://programming.dev/comment/219329

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

But what if the FileSize can be „1G“, „1024M“, 518K“, etc.?

Documentation itself is much more important and modern IDEs and Editors will show you what to type in :)

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Then use bytes

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

In that case I would call the variable fileSizeWithUnit and also document what the possible units are. I wouldn't say that documentation is categorically more important than good naming. Both are different aspects of good software development.