CS2141 Style Guidelines
Outline
- Be consistent!
- Comments
- Each file must begin with a comment block that has the filename,
your name, which assignment the file is for, and a brief description of
what is in the file.
- Each class header must begin with a comment block describing the purpose of the class.
- Each function must begin with short comment block. The block
should briefly describe the function, list and describe all parameters,
and describe the return value, if anything.
- There should be line comments within the code itself for the
reader to understand what's going on. If I can't follow the
overall structure of your code, and there are no comments to help me,
it's wrong.
- Indentation
- Indentations must always be 4 spaces per "level" of indentation. Most text editors will let you change this.
- DO NOT USE TABS! Tabs vary depending on the editor, and will cause me much grief when grading.
- The private:, public:, and protected: keywords in a class should be aligned with the word class
- if statements: indent the code 4 spaces under the if.
- if-else statements: the else must always be aligned under the if.
- for, while, and do loops: always indent the body of the loop.
- See Indentation for an example.
- Other things
- Brackets { }:
- A starting bracket should be at the end of the statement which it associates with.
- The ending bracket should be aligned with that statement.
- Always use brackets with multi-line if statements and loops.
- Do not use brackets with in-line if statements or loops.
- When using an if-else statement, the else or else if should be immediately after the closing bracket (with the next opening bracket at the end of that line). An else-if statement should always use brackets.
- A one line function may use brackets on the same line
(after the function declaration). The width of the line is still
limited to 80 characters.
- Keep the code readable.
- Choose meaningful identifier names - single letters are only to be used for loop indexes.
- Use whitespace between operators (except "()", "[]", ".", "->", and unary operators: "++", "--", "&" (reference operator), and "*" (pointer dereference)). See White Space for examples of correct and incorrect usage.
- Limit the length of a line to 80 characters so there is no
wraparound if we print your code. Break your lines apart in clear ways,
using whitespace and variations on indention.
- Include a line break at the end of each file (very important for precompiler statements
- If using the ?: operator (the only trinary operator), use
two white spaces before and after each of the operator characters.
Also, the condition should be in parenthases.
- Do NOT use templates (unless specified by the assignment)
Details