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[v2,3/5] Documentation: document naming schema for structs and their functions

Message ID 25f73b970dcf8b1d1e7629f75c157ee02cd10809.1722323818.git.ps@pks.im (mailing list archive)
State Accepted
Commit 541204aabea80ce466b5f62bf6613cdaf104dd5a
Headers show
Series Documentation: some coding guideline updates | expand

Commit Message

Patrick Steinhardt July 30, 2024, 7:24 a.m. UTC
We nowadays have a proper mishmash of struct-related functions that are
called `<verb>_<struct>` (e.g. `clear_prio_queue()`) versus functions
that are called `<struct>_<verb>` (e.g. `strbuf_clear()`). While the
former style may be easier to tie into a spoken conversation, most of
our communication happens in text anyway. Furthermore, prefixing
functions with the name of the structure they operate on makes it way
easier to group them together, see which functions are related, and will
also help folks who are using code completion.

Let's thus settle on one style, namely the one where functions start
with the name of the structure they operate on.

Signed-off-by: Patrick Steinhardt <ps@pks.im>
---
 Documentation/CodingGuidelines | 19 +++++++++++++++++++
 1 file changed, 19 insertions(+)
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Patch

diff --git a/Documentation/CodingGuidelines b/Documentation/CodingGuidelines
index 65fba3b810..a6a1ede204 100644
--- a/Documentation/CodingGuidelines
+++ b/Documentation/CodingGuidelines
@@ -541,6 +541,25 @@  For C programs:
    use your own debugger and arguments. Example: `GIT_DEBUGGER="ddd --gdb"
    ./bin-wrappers/git log` (See `wrap-for-bin.sh`.)
 
+ - The primary data structure that a subsystem 'S' deals with is called
+   `struct S`. Functions that operate on `struct S` are named
+   `S_<verb>()` and should generally receive a pointer to `struct S` as
+   first parameter. E.g.
+
+	struct strbuf;
+
+	void strbuf_add(struct strbuf *buf, ...);
+
+	void strbuf_reset(struct strbuf *buf);
+
+    is preferred over:
+
+	struct strbuf;
+
+	void add_string(struct strbuf *buf, ...);
+
+	void reset_strbuf(struct strbuf *buf);
+
 For Perl programs:
 
  - Most of the C guidelines above apply.