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C isn't Java. Even Niklaus Wirth in Pascal, Oberon, and the like avoided naming their identifiers too long. 'GetStrSz()' is enough to achieve (most of) what you want, assuming certain naming conventions: - Makes it clear that this returns the number of bytes, assuming a naming convention where `sz` refers to size (in bytes) and `ln` refers to length (in some other unit which would be specified in the type). Note that in C, 'characters' refers to bytes. It's a flaw in how C names its types, yes, but I wouldn't say it should be any different just because other languages do things differently. - It doesn't use full words because I don't think it needs to. Abbreviations are OK as long as every (invested) party agrees that they're sane, and I think they're pretty sane. - It makes it explicit that it is performing a calculation (hence, is O(n)) via 'get'. I don't think all this is necessary, though - I actually think 'strln()' is enough. First, because characters means bytes, I can assume that this function is getting the number of characters (bytes) in a string. I wouldn't expect it to give me anything else! Second, in C, if strings were a struct of some sort, I'd expect to be able to get their length via 'str->ln', which would be O(1). The fact that the length is found through a function in the first place signals to me that it's doing something behind the scenes to figure that out. Remember - that's just my opinion, which I admit is extreme - but I think yours is just as extreme. |
I think that full words and verbs are easier to read and avoid ambiguity.
I guess this is a matter of style and preference.
This anecdote reminds me of the Mutazt type, something I found in a new codebase I was asked to debug. I had to dig for almost an hour to find exactly what this type was.
Turns out it was a char*, a C string. Buried under 4-5 levels of abstractions.
Mutazt = Mutable ASCII Zero Terminal.