MySQL Stored Procedure Programming

Name

DAT-01: Use a consistent and meaningful variable naming style

Synopsis

All of us have a distinct variable naming style, often based on the conventions of our first programming language. In the very early days of programming, programmers were required to keep variable names short so as to reduce memory overhead. Various programming languages impose additional restrictions on the programmer: case-sensitivity, maximum lengths, and allowable characters, for instance.

However programmers might differ as regards the “one true style” that is optimal for a particular language, almost every programmer would agree that, above all, variable names should be meaningful, and whatever style might be employed, it should be employed consistently throughout your programs.

Meaningful variable names are those that clearly articulate the data that the variable holds. It’s as simple as that. Avoid variable names that contain confusing or ambiguous abbreviations, and certainly avoid meaningless variable names such as v1, v2, etc.

Beyond being meaningful, conventions can help us understand the scope, data type, or some other property of our variables . In MySQL stored programs, we could use a convention that allows us to:

• Determine the data type of a variable from its name.

• Distinguish table column names from local variables or parameters.

• Identify the type of data held in the variables: data from a cursor, intermediate data, bits of SQL for a dynamic SQL, etc.

We believe that most of the above items are matters ...