On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 7:45 AM, Alastair Houghton <alast...@alastairs-place.net> wrote: > On 10 Jan 2009, at 00:11, Adam Foltzer wrote: > >> I've noticed a pattern in some Apple code where the instance variables are >> all prefixed with an underscore, but the property name, and therefore the >> accessors, are what you'd expect. > > Except that there's a long-standing rule that we shouldn't use leading > underscores for either member variable names or private method names because > names beginning with underscore are reserved for Apple's own use (even > member variable names, IIRC). So if you're going to use a prefix, it's > probably best to pick something like "m" (for "member"). > > But in general I think it's better not to prefix the names of member > variables, and then in your initialisers, to use a different name for the > argument.
Personally I have found that prefixing my instance variables is one of the best things I've ever done for code clarity. Being able to instantly tell that a particular variable is an instance variable or not is extremely valuable, at least to me. Tastes may vary. As for underscore being reserved, I have never been able to figure out any consequence of a conflict with an Apple ivar name. It may cause your source to fail to compile, but it won't cause any *binary* compatibility problems, which is the real menace. Mike _______________________________________________ Cocoa-dev mailing list (Cocoa-dev@lists.apple.com) Please do not post admin requests or moderator comments to the list. Contact the moderators at cocoa-dev-admins(at)lists.apple.com Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription: http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/cocoa-dev/archive%40mail-archive.com This email sent to arch...@mail-archive.com
