[development] $node namespace woes -- can we fix this in D6?

[Doug Green]

If you're referring to this in the coding standards:

"Global Variables - If you need to define global variables, their name
should start with a single underscore followed by the module/theme name and
another underscore."

It never occurred to me to interpret this for database columns.  I read an
implied "php" before global variables, thus

global $example; // bad
global $_mymodule_example; // good

I even added a rule to coder to check for this, but had to add exclusions
for a couple dozen core modules that didn't follow this convention.

Doug Green
904-583-3342
www.douggreenconsulting.com
 
Bringing Ideas to Life with Software Artistry and Invention...
Providing open source software political solutions

-----Original Message-----
From: development-bounces at drupal.org [mailto:development-bounces at drupal.org]
On Behalf Of Josh Koenig
Sent: Wednesday, May 30, 2007 2:49 AM
To: development at drupal.org
Subject: Re: [development] $node namespace woes -- can we fix this in D6?


The standard Moshe is talking about is somewhat implied here at the  
bottom in the naming convention section:

http://drupal.org/coding-standards

It should probably be explicitly spelled-out though in terms of  
stuffing data into node objects and the like. I think putting it in  
doxygen is critical. I real api.drupal.org 100 times a day. Handbook  
maybe once a week. :)

I (heart) standards.

-josh

>
> On May 29, 2007, at 6:23 PM, Moshe Weitzman wrote:
>
>> thata the drupal convention, and IMO it works quite well.
>
> undocumented conventions that aren't expressed in the code of core  
> are worthless, IMHO.
>
>> Contrib modules are second class citizens and should always prefix  
>> their variables, form fields, node elements, etc.  this system  
>> works very well,  when you use it.
>
> so, you advocate "luck" as the solution to this problem. ;)  fair  
> enough.  however, if core doesn't do this itself, we have to  
> mention this in the developer docs, preferably in a few places like  
> the doxygen for nodeapi('load'), the drupal coding convetions, etc,  
> etc.  if that's really the only answer here, i'll volunteer to  
> submit the issue to the documentation queue...
>
> thanks,
> -derek
>
> p.s. project* was written by core maintainers, and has been doing  
> this wrong for over 5+ years.  if we can't trust the core  
> maintainer's own contribs to provide best practices for this, who  
> can we trust? ;)  hence the need for docs and vastly more awareness  
> of this problem by the rest of us 2nd class citizens.
>
>

Josh Koenig, Partner
josh at chapterthreellc.com
AIM: chap3josh
1-888-822-4273