Standard Module Style

This document describes general guidance for style when writing a standard module. Of course, there will be exceptions to this guidance when there is a good reason.

PascalCase and camelCase

Prefer PascalCase or camelCase to separating_with_underscores. The rest of this document will use PascalCase or camelCase to signify the pattern of indicating new words with an upper case letter and starting the identifier; where PascalCase starts the name with an upper case letter and camelCase starts with a lower case letter.

Modules

Module names should be PascalCase.

Note

Chapel does not use a separate namespace for types vs. module names. As a result, it’s generally a goal to avoid using the same name for, say, a type and a module.

Classes

Class type names should be PascalCase. The idea is that starting with an uppercase letter is the convention for by-reference types.

Records

Record type names should be camelCase. The idea is that starting with a lowercase letter is the convention for by-value types.

Enums

Enum type names should be camelCase. The enum values should also be camelCase.

Functions and Methods

Function and method names should be camelCase.

Generally speaking, it’s desirable to use methods on a value (vs functions that aren’t methods) when there is a clear type responsible for the operation.

Use parentheses-less methods only for returning properties that could be reasonably implemented as fields. However, if such a method is named isXYZ or hasXYZ it should use parentheses (so, use proc isReal() { ...  } rather than proc isReal { ... }). Parentheses-less functions that aren’t methods should be avoided.

Many paren-ful methods take some notable action. Try to make these methods method names be a verb. In particular, a method that modifies an argument in-place should be a verb.

Other Identifiers

Variables, fields, and argument names should be camelCase or CamelCase.