[libvirt PATCH 4/4] docs: coding-style: One variable declaration per line

[Laine Stump]

On 1/14/22 10:56 AM, Ján Tomko wrote:
> On a Friday in 2022, Tim Wiederhake wrote:
>> This was not mentioned before.
>>
>> Signed-off-by: Tim Wiederhake <twiederh at redhat.com>
>> ---
>> docs/coding-style.rst | 13 +++++++++++++
>> 1 file changed, 13 insertions(+)
>>
>> diff --git a/docs/coding-style.rst b/docs/coding-style.rst
>> index 14c5136398..e1ed34f764 100644
>> --- a/docs/coding-style.rst
>> +++ b/docs/coding-style.rst
>> @@ -600,6 +600,19 @@ calling another function.
>>         ...
>>     }
>>
>> +Define variables on separate lines. This allows for smaller, easier to
>> +understand diffs when changing them. Define variables in the smallest
>> +possible scope.
>> +
>> +::
>> +
>> +  GOOD:
>> +    int x;
>> +    int y;
>> +
>> +  BAD:
>> +    int x, y;
>> +
> 
> Please use longer variable names and initialize some too, to illustrate
> it better, e.g.:
> 
>      int count = 0, nnodes;
> 
> Personally I don't mind:
> 
>    size_t i, j;
> 
> that much - even though removing one does cause churn, they are simple
> to read.

I also don't mind combining simple things like that, but am willing to 
go full-isolated just for consistency's sake.

Since it's Friday and we're talking about personal preferences - I 
personally dislike the use of i and j (and anything else with a single 
letter) as variable names, because it makes using a text search for 
occurences pointless. Sure, longer variable names could also be a 
substring of something else, and any variable could be re-used 
elsewhere, but even then a search is mildly usable.

(On the other hand, sometimes a loop is just a loop and it takes too 
much brain capacity to think of a meaningful name for the index. I used 
to work with someone who always used "ii" and "jj" for generic loop 
indexes because they were then easy to search for with few false 
positives (well - "ascii", "skiing", and a surprisingly high number of 
other more obscure words, but still...) , and I internalized that 
practice myself. After having libvirt patches with that rejected a 
couple times, I unlearned and conformed to the hive :-))