Visual Basic 6 Black Book
(Publisher: The Coriolis Group)
Author(s): Steven Holzner
ISBN: 1576102831
Publication Date: 08/01/98

Control Prefixes

The suggested Microsoft control prefixes appear in Table 1.5. As you can see, there’s a suggested prefix for every standard type of control.

If you work with databases, take a look at Table 1.6, which holds the prefixes for Data Access Objects (DAO).

Besides the prefixes in Table 1.6, Microsoft recommends prefixes for menus and constants as well, and we’ll take a look at these now to round off our discussion on this topic.

Menu And Constant Prefixes

Microsoft recommends that you prefix menu controls with mnu and then the menu name followed by the menu item name. For example, the File menu’s Open item would be named mnuFileOpen, and the Edit menu’s Cut item would be named mnuEditCut. Microsoft also recommends that constant names (you declare constants with the Const statement) should be mixed case with capitals starting each word, for example:

Const DiskDriveNumber = 1        'Constant
Const MaximumFileCount = 1024    'Constant

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TIP:  Although standard Visual Basic constants do not include data type and scope information, prefixes like i, s, g, and m can be useful in understanding the value or scope of a constant.

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That completes the prefix and naming conventions. As you can see, there are prefixes for just about every type of programming construct available. You’re not constrained to use them, but if you work in a team, they can be extremely helpful.

Microsoft also has a set of suggestions on commenting your code, and we’ll take a look at those suggestions now.

Code Commenting Conventions

In general, you should add a new comment when you declare a new and important variable, or wish to make clear some implementation method. Ideally, procedures should only have one purpose and be named clearly enough so that excessive comments are not required. In addition, procedures should begin with a comment describing what the procedure does, and that comment should be broken up into various sections. The Microsoft recommendations for those sections appear in Table 1.7; note that not all sections may be applicable for all procedures.