Name Conventions¶

A naming convention is a way to write a name for a structure, with a specific format.

There are technical conventions, which leads the PHP engine to refuse a name, such as starting a class name with a number.

There are developer conventions, which are a community practice, that fits within the technical conventions. For example, constants are written in upper case.

Here are technical conventions for PHP:

Variables, properties: they start with a $ sign, followed by a letter or underscore, then by letters, digits and underscore. There have no length limit. As a regex: $[a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]*
Functions, methods: they start with a letter or underscore, then by letters, digits and underscore. There have no length limit. As a regex: [a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]*
Classes, traits, enumerations, interfaces: they start with a letter or underscore, then by letters, digits and underscore. There have no length limit. As a regex: [a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]*
Constants, global or class: they start with a letter or underscore, then by letters, digits and underscore. There have no length limit. As a regex: [a-zA-Z_][a-zA-Z0-9_]*
Array index: they must be valid strings or integers.

<?php

    // here, foo is the name of a function
    function foo() {}

    // the name is used to call the function
    foo();

?>

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Name Conventions¶

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