Use Simplified Hungarian Notation for variable names

To make your life easier we suggest the use of the simplified Hungarian notation for variable naming. Consider the problem of dealing with a thousand-line function that you wrote last year. That functions should never be that long in first place is besides the point. Assume you are staring at a variable name wondering what the type of the variable is. The variable happens to be declared on the first line of the function and you are viewing the file through a very slow telnet connection. If you have lots of time to waste you might just decide to scroll and wait. The alternate solution would have been to use Hungarian notation for variable naming. An Hungarian Microsoft programmer developed the notation (hence the name). The idea is to prefix variable names with the type of the variable. Microsoft has simplified Hungarian Notation to become Simplified Hungarian Notation. For our purposes all Microsoft specific content has been removed. The recommended variable naming conventions are listed in Table . The simplified version was derived since the true Hungarian Notation is too cumbersome. It accounts for less than 32-bit operating systems wherein you are required to specify things like whether a pointer is far or near. In addition it also accounts for signing and bit length of types.

Table: Simplified Hungarian Notation.

Prefix	Type	Description	Example
n	int	any integer type	nCount
ch	char	any character type	chLetter
f	float, double	floating point	fPercent
b	bool	any boolean type	bDone
l	long	any long type	lDistance
p	*	any pointer	pObject, pnCount
sz	*	nul terminated string of characters	szText
pfn	*	function pointer	pfnProgress
h	handle	handle to something	hMenu

Variable names can then be constructed from combinations of the prefix list given in Table . The programmer should use common sense to determine which combinations make sense. Additional examples are listed in Table .

Table: Example of type specific variable naming.

Type	Example
int	nCount
int*	pnCount
bool*	pbDone
bool&	bDone

A paradox arises while using Hungarian Notation of any variation. What do you do with user defined types? You do not want to invent your own prefix because it may not make sense to Waldo, but by not prefixing a variable with something you are not helping the situation either. The best solution is to name your variables in such a way that you do not need to use Hungarian Notation to decipher its type