NAMES

Constant Names

6.8.5

Whenever possible and appropriate, basing the names of methods in a new class

on names in an existing class that is similar, especially a class from the standard

Java Application Programming Interface classes, will make it easier to use.

Method names cannot hide or be hidden by other names ( 6.5.6).

6.8.4   Field Names

Names of fields that are not

final

 should be in mixed case with a lowercase first

letter and the first letters of subsequent words capitalized. Note that well designed

Java classes have very few

public

 or

protected

 fields, except for fields that are

constants (

final static

 fields) ( 6.8.5).

Fields should have names that are nouns, noun phrases, or abbreviations for

nouns. Examples of this convention are the fields

buf

,

pos

, and

count

 of the class

java.io.ByteArrayInputStream

 ( 22.6) and the field

bytesTransferred

 of

the class

java.io.InterruptedIOException

 ( 22.30.1).

Hiding involving field names is rare.

If a field name hides a package name, then an

import

 declaration ( 7.5) can

usually be used to make available the type names declared in that package.

If a field name hides a type name, then a fully qualified name for the type can

be used.

Field names cannot hide method names.

If a field name is hidden by a declaration of a parameter or local variable, then

the name of the parameter or local variable can be changed without affecting

other Java code.

6.8.5   Constant Names

The names of constants in interface types should be, and

final

 variables of class

types may conventionally be, a sequence of one or more words, acronyms, or

abbreviations, all uppercase, with components separated by underscore  

_

  char 

acters. Constant names should be descriptive and not unnecessarily abbreviated.

Conventionally they may be any appropriate part of speech. Examples of names

for constants include

MIN_VALUE

,

MAX_VALUE

,

MIN_RADIX

, and

MAX_RADIX

 of the

class

java.lang.Character

.

A group of constants that represent alternative values of a set, or, less fre 

quently, masking bits in an integer value, are sometimes usefully specified with a

common acronym as a name prefix, as in:

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