ASP Best Practices

Object and Procedure Call Names

To distinguish object names and procedure calls from elements such as variables, begin each object name or procedure call with a verb. Use initial capitalization for each term within an object name or procedure call. Table A.1 suggests some naming conventions that could be used to name objects for some typical activities.

Table A.1 Naming Conventions for Objects and Procedures

Name	Function	Example
AddNew	Adds new records	Customer.AddNew
Update	Edits records	Customer.Update
Remove	Deletes records	Customer.Remove
Get	Returns row from database	Customer.GetNewest
List	Returns multiple rows	Customer.ListNew

To specify returns from methods that return information, use From and For with a method or function name.

Name	Function	Example
GetFor	Returns criteria-based row	Customer.GetForName
ListFor	Returns criteria-based multiple rows	Customer.ListForPeriod

Object Naming

Use initial capitalization for each term when naming objects, including built-in objects. Use descriptive names for objects, even though this requires more characters per name.

The following example conforms to this naming convention (“cnn” is the prefix for an ADO connection variable):

Set cnnSQL = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
Set cnnSQLServer = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")

These names do not conform:

Set cnnS = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
Set cnnsql = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")