Local Declaration Guidelines

Local declaration style guidelines for contributing to the Eiffel Software code repository.

Feature Arguments

Feature arguments should begin with the prefix a_ and nothing more. The prefix a_ represent a contraction of the word argument and does not represent the singular inflection - a noun - Therefore it is not valid to utilize an when the suffixed argument word begins with a vowel. The following is a correct usage:

f (a_string: STRING; a_integer: STRING)
        ...
    do
    end

Here, the second argument a_integer, is not considered A Integer but The Argument Integer, hence the use if a_ instead of _an_.

In-line Agent Feature Arguments

When working with an in-line agent, to prevent conflicts with the enclosing feature's arguments, the prefix ia_ should be used. The same rules regarding English language rules apply here as they do to feature arguments. The IA prefix represents an In-line Argument.

f (a_string: STRING; a_integer: STRING)
        ...
    do
        process (agent (ia_string: STRING; ia_integer: INTEGER)
            do
                ...
            end (a_string, a_integer))
    end

Local Declarations

l_

In Contracts

Due to the current scoping rules of object-tests

rl_ for require el_ for ensure cl_ for check ll_ for loop il_ for loop invariant vl_ for loop variant

Indexing

When a conflict between local delcarations exist a form of indexing must be use

equals (a_object: ANY; a_other_object: ANY): BOOLEAN