naming-convention.md

Naming convention

Singular words (e.g. item, stylesheet, user) should be used throughout files and code instead of plurals

Directories containing a type or category of file, for example Stylesheet files, Page Logic PHP scripts, or static asset files should be singular words, for example: style, page, asset, rather than styles, pages, assets.

Variables containing a collection of values or references should be named as a singular collection in preference of a plural word, for example: $name_list, $stylesheet_list, $element_list, rather than $names, $stylesheets, $elements.

Naming collections as a "list" rather than a plural helps readability, especially when iterating over collections.

Using list (more readable):

foreach($ingredient_list as $ingredient) {
	$dish->add($ingredient);
}

Using plural (less readable, error prone):

foreach($ingredients as $ingredient) {
	$dish->add($ingredients);
}

Avoid Hungarian Notation, where file/variable names that indicate their type

Variables have types and files have extensions. This is enough to infer its type. Hungarian Notation is a naming convention in which the name of an entity indicates its type or intended use. This is a dated convention and should be avoided.

In the above example, collections of variables are preferred to be suffixed with "list". In some languages, this would violate the anti-Hungarian Notation due to the native type of List, but in PHP there is no List type so we can be safe in using the word for this purpose.

On that note, avoid calling things $something_array. Implying that the variable is an array makes refactoring more difficult and error prone, when in the future the variable may not be an array any more.