Naming Conventions

As programs have become more complex both in terms of size and proliferation of data types, many programmers have adopted a variable-naming convention, which is commonly referred to as Hungarian notation. It was Hungarian born programmer Dr. Charles Simonyi (a Chief Architect for Microsoft) who first developed a variable-naming convention. The title is derived from the ironic fact that using his notation can actually make code appear more complex i.e. the joke is that it might as well be written in Hungarian.

Over the years, several “standard” versions of Hungarian notation have been proposed and/or published. The version documented below is an amalgamation of many sources and is designed specifically for KiXtart and KiXforms.

When using Hungarian notation, variable names begin with one or more lowercase letters that denote the variable type, thus providing an inherent identification. For example, the prefix 's' is used to identify a string, as in 'sName' or 'sAddress'. In a similar fashion, the prefix 'al' identifies an array of long integers. The actual variable name is denoted by a leading capital letter.

KiXtart Hungarian Notation

Data Type	Definition	Prefix	Example
Array**	Collection of data	a	abFlag
Boolean	True or false	b	bStatus
Char*	8-bit data item	c	cInitial
Double	64-bit floating point	d	dPercent
Function	Definable procedure	fn	fnExit
Global**	Scope of variable	g	glVersion
Long	32-bit integer	l	lAge
String	Array of Characters	s	sName
* The Char data type does not really exist in KiXtart, but the 'c' prefix can be used to denote a variable that should not contain more than a single character, and in the event that it does, only the first character of the string is considered. ** Denotes a prefix to a data type e.g. asNames is an array of strings. Please note that when a global array is defined, the prefix used is 'ga' and not 'ag'.

KiXforms Hungarian Notation

Object Type	Prefix	Example
	chk	chkReadOnly
	cbo	cboEnglish
	cmd	cmdExit
	frm	frmEntry
	fra	fraLanguage
	hyp	hypKiXforms
	img	imgIcon
	ils	ilsAllIcons
	lbl	lblHelpMessage
	lst	lstPolicyCodes
	lvw	lvwHeadings
	opt	optGender
	pic	picVGA
	prg	prgLoadFile
	rtf	rtfReport
	hsb vsb	hsbVolume vsbRate
	sld	sldScale
	spn	spnPages
	txt	txtLastName
	tmr	tmrAlarm
	cmd	cmdOnOff