Coding style¶

Licensing¶

Do not forget to include licensing information (GPLv3 with OpenSSL exception) in each .cpp and .h.

Tabulations¶

No tab characters. Replace 1 tab by 2 spaces.

Strengthened Rules¶

• Rule 31: Use COLOR_RED instead of Color::RED

• Rule 34: Use the suffix .cpp

• Rule 35: A single header file must contain a single public class

• Rule 72: Use the Example 2 style (aka. Allman style, used by MSDN and Visual Studio):

  while (!done)
  {
    doSomething();
    done = moreToDo();
  }
  

Replaced Rules¶

• Rule 6: The names of the methods are camel-case to move the coding style closer to that of the .NET framework.

• Rule 36:

  • One-liners are always ok in a .h,
  • High-performance code is also allowed but only with the inline keyword (the code being moved at the end of the header)

• Rule 40: Use #pragma once in each header file (cf. Wikipedia)

• Rules 73 and 80: Use Visual Studio’s default style that does not add two whitespaces in front of public, protected, private and case:

  class SomeClass : public BaseClass
  {
  public:
    ...
  protected:
    ...
  private:
    ...
  };
  

Additional Rules¶

• Use C++ exceptions, avoid error codes.
• Use the RAII design pattern (Resource Allocation Is Initialization) wherever possible.
• No C-style casting, use static_cast, reinterpret_cast, dynamic_cast and const_cast.
• Never use using namespace in header files (except inside inline implementations).
• Complement to rule 20: Finalize is the complementary word to Initialize.
• Minimize the number of #include in header files.
• Never use catch (...), except when protecting non-Orthanc code.
• To ease unit testing, favor the JavaBeans conventions:
  • Single constructor without argument,
  • Use getters/setters.

Conventions for pointers and references¶

Except when clearly stated in the documentation:

• A function that receives a reference to an object as an argument is not responsible for the lifecycle of the object, and must not delete it. The object is allowed to keep this reference in a member variable. The caller must ensure that the referenced object will not be freed between the object that references it.
• A function that receives a pointer to an object as an argument takes the ownership of the object.
• A function that returns a reference to an object indicates that the object should not be freed by the caller.
• A function that returns a pointer to an object transfers its ownership to the caller. Occasionally, a pointer is also returned to indicate the presence or the absence (represented by NULL) of some resource: In such a case, the pointer must not be freed.