Veronica K. B. Olsen
25 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
25 lines
1.5 KiB
Markdown
# Code Style Guide
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The source code of novelWriter broadly follows the style guide [PEP8](https://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/), but with a few modifications and exceptions.
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### Source Code Exceptions
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* Methods are camelCase, not underscore based.
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The reason is partially because of the maintainers personal preference, and partially because that is what Qt5 and PyQt5 uses.
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The maintainer generally, across multiple programming languages, uses underscores for defining namespaces.
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* The maximum length of a code line is 99 characters, not 79.
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The reason for this is that novelWriter is almost entirely made up of classes, meaning nearly all lines of code already have 8 leading spaces.
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A 79 character limitation is too strict, and causes too many wrapped lines.
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99 characters is suitable for GitHub diff readability, and therefore the preferred limit.
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It is also permitted under PEP8 as the maximum.
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Comments and docstrings should comply with the 72 character limit.
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* Aligning code with additional spaces is acceptable in those cases where it improves readability.
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Otherwise, the PEP8 standard should be applied.
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### Documentation
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The documentation does not adhere to the 80 character limit either.
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The standard used in documentation is one line break after each sentence.
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This is an alternative style that greatly improves readability of diffs as re-wrapping text is not needed when inserting new text in paragraphs.
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Instead, the diff will show changes to each sentence.
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