CppCodingStandards/CppFileConventions

C++ File Conventions

File Names

File names should not contain underscores and should match class names if appropriate. File names should not be case sensitive and by default will be lower case. File names should not contain extraneous whitespace, or other special characters other than letters or digits. File names should only contain one period, to separate the file extension. C++ source files will use the .cpp extension. C source files will use the .c extension. All header files will use the .h extension

Example:

  workq.cpp
  workq.h 
  executor.c

Source File Layout

Source files should contain the following components in the order shown:

1. Prolog
2. System #includes
3. Application #includes
4. External functions
5. External variables
6. Constants
7. Static variable initializations
8. Public methods
9. Protected methods
10. Private methods
11. Functions

• When possible #include lines will be placed in the source files rather than in the header file, except when the header file is explicitly dependent.

Header File Layout

Header files should contain the following components in the order shown:

1. File guard
2. Prolog
3. System #includes
4. Application #includes
5. #defines
6. Macros
7. External functions
8. External variables
9. Constants
10. Typedefs
11. Structs
12. Forward declarations
13. Class declarations
14. Public methods
15. Protected methods
16. Private methods
17. Inline method definitions
18. Functions

Small inline methods like trivial accessors may be implemented in the class definition.

Header Guards

All header files should contain a file guard mechanism to prevent multiple inclusion. This mechanism is implemented as shown by the following lines:

  #ifndef FileName_H      // first line of the header file
  #define FileName_H      // second line of the header file
  ...                     // body of the header file
  #endif  // FileName_H   // last line of the header file; note comment