Is it best practice to always capitalize class file names in PHP, and other languages?

Question

I ask because I've seen a couple of OO PHP tutorials which do not adhere to this, but to me it just makes sense. It makes it easy to instantly see if a file is a class or not, if non-class files all use lowercase names.

Related: [Naming classes, methods, functions and variables](http://programmers.stackexchange.com/q/149303/25936) — yannis, May 27 '12 at 21:12

score 4 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:40

4

This is a naming convention question and whilst it is a good meta question it seems to have been well covered with this StackOverflow question from Dec 2008.

Basically, some languages have prescribed naming conventions (e.g. Java) whereas others (the majority) have evolved and are mixed to the point of Programmer's Holy Wars.

edited May 23 '17 at 12:40

Community

1

answered May 27 '12 at 19:58

Jeremy Thornton

66
4

2

To bad that link doesn't work anymore... that is why link answers are bad, even links to SO don't always stay live. – Arian Faurtosh Nov 14 '14 at 18:30
I have added a WebArchive link to bring it back to life. – Chad Dec 12 '16 at 15:46

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 28 '12 at 02:09

My 2c:

If the language doesn't force any conventions, and this includes things like indentation (not just naming). Then the important thing is consistency. Consistency is far more important than the choice of a good convention.

The existing answer answers your actual question.

Is it best practice to always capitalize class file names in PHP, and other languages?

2 Answers2