Re: Long Constant Names

["Joe Lee" <LeeJD@xxxxxx>]

An interesting idea occurred to me while reading this. Would it be
possible to add constant qualified data structures? These constants
would be used and defined just like a variable qualified data structure.
So you would have something like the following.

DayOfWeek     DS                 Qualified Const
 Sunday                                 Const(1)
 Monday                                Const(2)
 Tuesday                               Const(3)
 Wednesday                          Const(4)
 Thursday                              Const(5)
 Friday                                   Const(6)
 Saturday                              Const(7)

 /Free
  Select;
   When  today = DayOfWeek.Sunday;
   When  today = DayOfWeek.Saturday;
  EndSl;
/End-Free


This would help avoid the need to have "long" constant names, at least
in the still fixed format D specs, and provide an easy and consistent
method of specifying context.

Would something like this be a "good" thing? And how hard would it be
to implement, Hans? Barbara?

Joe Lee

>>> antoine.contal@xxxxxxx 12/30/2004 08:12:34 >>>

Steve,

You're right. In fact, this double semantic load a constant has to bear
is the reason I'm talking about constant names specifically, and not
variable names in general. Generally speaking, the constant should state
both the context (e.g.,
'dayofweek', 'ErrMsg') and the value (e.g. 'monday', 'StUpd').

I'd rather put an underscore between the two parts, but if I can't have
more than 15 chars, I have to use chars sparingly.

Regards.

--
Antoine CONTAL



something else to keep in mind is that a constant will 99% of the time
be one of a set of values.
   dayofweek_monday
  dayofweek_tuesday

  statuscode_active
  statuscode_held
  statuscode_deleted

It follows that the constant name should always indicate that
relationship. What better way is there than the first half of the name
is the name of the constant set, the second half is the name of the
constant within that set? You dont have to use the underscore if you
dont want to.

-Steve



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