Development guide

Variables

Variables are declared with the smallest possible scope.

A variable ought to be declared with the smallest possible scope to improve the readability of the code and so that variables are not unnecessarily allocated. When a variable that is declared at the beginning of a function is used somewhere in the code, it is not easy to directly see the type of the variable. In addition, there is a risk that such a variable is inadvertently hidden if a local variable, having the same name, is declared in an internal block.

Every variable that is declared is given an initial value before it is used.

Many local variables are only used in special cases which seldom occur. If a variable is declared at the outer level, memory will be allocated even if it is not used. In addition, when variables are initialized upon declaration, more efficient code is obtained than if values are assigned when the variable is used.

If possible, always use initialization instead of assignment.

A variable must always be initialized before use. Normally, the compiler gives a warning if a variable is undefined. It is then sufficient to take care of such cases. Instances of a class are usually initialized even if no arguments are provided in the declaration (the empty constructor is invoked). To declare a variable that has been initialized in another file, the keyword extern is always used.

By always initializing variables, instead of assigning values to them before they are first used, the code is made more efficient since no temporary objects are created for the initialization. For objects having large amounts of data, this can result in significantly faster code.