Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!enea!tut!santra!news From: news@santra.UUCP (news) Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc Subject: Re: Style rules for C shops Message-ID: <12567@santra.UUCP> Date: 5 May 88 16:57:45 GMT References: <12120@santra.UUCP> <1962@bgsuvax.UUCP> Reply-To: nbo@hutcs.UUCP (Nassim Bouteldja) Distribution: comp.lang.misc,comp.lang.c Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland Lines: 24 Summary: Some style rules cannot be taken care of by beautifiers In article <1962@bgsuvax.UUCP> denbeste@bgsuvax.UUCP (William C. DenBesten) writes: >>The ideal solution, it seems to me, would be to have a beautifier that >puts all the code into your company style, just before you freeze the >code. Of course, if you don't trust the beautifier, you could write a >short c program the would compare the before and after ignoring >multiple white-space characters, to verify that it didn't change the >source code. >... That sounds like a nice solution, except that there are certain styles that a beautifier cannot produce. For instance, how do you make it produce meaningful variable names? How do you make sure the program uses constants (defines) when appropriate? What do you do with too lengthy procedures? These are all style metrics that are important to asess the readability of a program. I agree that characteristics like indentation and blank lines can be taken care of by a beautifier. More comments appreciated. Nassim Bouteldja Helsinki University of Technology Dept. of Computer Science Finland E-mail : nbo@hutcs.UUCP