Coding Style

To simplify the documentation, GenoPro uses a subset of the Hungarian Notation. The Hungarian naming convention adds a prefix to the identifier name to indicate its functional type. For instance, an index will be prefixed with the letter i, a counter will be prefixed with the letter c, and a string with the prefix str. The following table displays a summary of the primitive data types:

Prefix	Description
`i`	Index. An index is a zero-based number to access an item in a collection. The first item of the collection is at the index 0. Please notice GenoPro may use the letter `i` for an individual and `f` for a family as the loop item name. Example: `iChildFirst = 0 ' First child in the collection iChildLast = i.children.count - 1`
`c`	Count. A count is a number to indicate the total of number of items, rather than its position within the collection as the index does. Example: `cChildren = i.children.count ' Get the number of children`
n	Number. This is when a number is not an index nor a counter. Example: `nErrorCode = 5 ' Access denied (according to the Win32 error codes) nYearOfBirth = i.birth.year`
`str`	String. Any sequence of characters such as a name, comment or description. Example: `strNameFirst = i.name.first ' Get the first name of the individual`
`ch`	A single character. This is rarely used by the report generator but can be useful to indicate the presence of a single character. For instance, the component `chEncoding` from method `Util.FormatString` designates the encoding of the string represented by a single character such as `t`, `x` or `u`.
`o`	Object. Any complex data structure such as dictionary, repertory, collection. You may consider as an object a picture, individual, family, pedigree link, however it is recommended to define a special prefix for each. For the report generator, everything is an object, so use the `o` prefix as a "catch all" when there is no better appropriate prefix to use. For instance, if you are manipulating several pictures, you may consider using the prefix `pic` instead of `o` for a picture object. This way, the variable name `picFather` and `picMother` will be more descriptive and less confusing than `oPictureFather` and `oPictureMother`. Examples: `Set oDictionary = Util.NewStringDictionary() Set oChildFirst = i.children(0) ' Get the first child`
`f`	Boolean flag. This variable indicates the presence of a boolean value such as true or false. A boolean value is not useful to the end user reading the report, however can be very useful to store intermediate results of conditional expressions. The intuitive prefix for a boolean value would be the letter `b`, however GenoPro uses the `b` prefix for a byte. Since the report generator does not manipulate bytes, this prefix is not documented here. Example: `fDisplayPictures = i.Pictures.count > 0`

The report generator uses the Session object as a data repertory to store and retrieve objects between HTML pages. Since the session can store anything from a string to a number to a complex object, the key of the session uses a prefix of the data it contains. Here are a few examples:


Session("strTitleReport") = "My Report"
Session("fIncludePictureAlbum") = true
Set oDictionary = Util.NewStringDictionary()
Session("oDictionaryUniqueLastNames") = oDictionary

Variable and Routine Naming

When in doubt, GenoPro names the variables to favor sorting, so similar variables and routines can be easily grouped together, thus making it easier to find a resembling routine. For instance, the VBScript language has tree routines for trimming spaces: Trim, LTrim and RTrim. GenoPro would have named those routines Trim, TrimLeft and TrimRight respectively, so the user can quickly discover the presence of routines to trim left and right. Similarly, GenoPro uses the name strNameFirst, so the variable can be grouped with other similar variables such as strNameMiddle and strNameLast. Using strFirstName, strMiddleName, and strLastName may be a bit easier to read, however those variables would be more difficult to find using a code browser. Most development environment have tools to browse through code, and the most popular practice is to display all variables and routines sorted alphabetically. In the case of the report generator, there is no such thing as a code browser, however the documentation of the report generator uses the same coding practices as GenoPro does for writing the C++ code.

Hungarian Notation History

Long time ago, Charles Simonyi introduced a naming convention that adds a prefix to the identifier name to indicate the functional type of the identifier. This system became widely used inside Microsoft. It came to be known as "Hungarian Notation" because the prefixes make the variable names look a bit as though they're written in some non-English language and because Simonyi is originally from Hungary.

As it turns out, the Hungarian naming convention is quite useful—it's one technique among many that helps programmers produce better code faster. GenoPro uses the Hungarian notation intensively. GenoPro extended the original Hungarian notation to include more data types and functionalities. GenoPro has a 20-page document describing notations for classes, interfaces, methods, member variables, static variables, global variables, objects, arrays, bitwise operations, memory allocation cycles, error handling, exception handling, and data flow to name a few.

There are many other benefits of using the Hungarian notation such as finding bugs at compile time and finding bugs during code reviews. People rejecting the usefulness of the Hungarian notation never grasped the idea of using the compiler as a debugger.