In Python, the naming conventions are an important aspect of writing clean and maintainable code. The Python community has established these conventions over time, and they're formalized in PEP 8, the style guide for Python code. Here's an overview of the naming conventions for class names, method names, and variable names, focusing on the typical use of snake_case and lowerCamelCase:
- Convention: CapWords or CamelCase.
- Description: Each word in the class name starts with a capital letter with no underscores between words. This convention makes class names easily distinguishable from other elements in the code.
- Example:
class MyClass,class CarFactory.
- Convention: lower_case_with_underscores or snake_case.
- Description: All letters in method and function names are lowercase, with words separated by underscores. This style is used for most variable and function names throughout Python code and is recommended to maintain consistency.
- Example:
def my_function(),def calculate_area().
- Convention: lower_case_with_underscores or snake_case.
- Description: Similar to methods, variable names should be in lowercase with words separated by underscores. This convention enhances readability, especially for variable names containing multiple words.
- Example: my_variable, total_volume.
- Instance Variables and Parameters: Follow the same snake_case convention as method and variable names.
- Constants: Constants are typically defined on a module level and written in all capital letters with underscores separating words, e.g., MAX_OVERFLOW.
- Private or Internal: Use a leading underscore for non-public methods and instance variables, e.g., _internal_method or _hidden_variable.
- Special Methods: Methods that start and end with double underscores are special methods in Python (also known as "dunder" methods), e.g., init, str.