c-coding-style.md

C Coding Style

The coding style used is primarily the GNU flavor of the GNOME coding style, with some additions described below.

General

• Use this code style on new code. When changing old code with a different code style, feel free to also adjust it to use this code style.

• Use regular C types and stdint.h types instead of GLib fundamental types, except for gboolean, and guint/gulong for GSource IDs and signal handler IDs. That means e.g. uint64_t instead of guint64, int instead of gint, unsigned int instead of guint if unsignedness is of importance, uint8_t instead of guchar, and so on.

• Try to to limit line length to 80 characters, although it's not a strict limit.

• Usage of g_autofree and g_autoptr is encouraged. The style to use is

  g_autofree char *text = NULL;
  g_autoptr (StSomeThing) thing = NULL;
  
  text = g_strdup_printf ("The text: %d", a_number);
  thing = g_object_new (ST_TYPE_SOME_THING,
                        "text", text,
                        NULL);
  thinger_use_thing (rocket, thing);

• Declare variables at the top of the block they are used, but avoid non-trivial logic among variable declarations. Non-trivial logic can be getting a pointer that may be NULL, any kind of math, or anything that may have side effects.

• Instead of boolean arguments in functions, prefer enums or flags when they're more expressive. The naming convention for flags is

  typedef _StSomeThingFlags
  {
    ST_SOME_THING_FLAG_NONE = 0,
    ST_SOME_THING_FLAG_ALTER_REALITY = 1 << 0,
    ST_SOME_THING_FLAG_MANIPULATE_PERCEPTION = 1 << 1,
  } StSomeThingFlags;

• Use g_new0 () etc. instead of g_slice_new0 ().

• Initialize and assign floating point variables (i.e. float or double) using the form floating_point = 3.14159 or ratio = 2.0.

Naming conventions

• For object instance pointers, use a descriptive name instead of self, e.g.

G_DEFINE_TYPE (StPlaceholder, st_placeholder, G_TYPE_OBJECT)

...

void
st_placeholder_hold_place (StPlaceholder *placeholder)
{
  ...
}

Header (.h) files

• The return type and * are separated by a space.
• Function name starts one space after the last *.
• Parenthesis comes one space after the function name.

As an example, this is how functions in a header file should look like:

gboolean st_icon_theme_has_icon (StIconTheme *icon_theme,
                                 const char  *icon_name);

GList * st_icon_theme_list_icons (StIconTheme *icon_theme,
                                  const char  *context);

StIconInfo * st_icon_info_new_for_pixbuf (StIconTheme *icon_theme,
                                          GdkPixbuf   *pixbuf);

Source code

Keep functions in the following order in source files:

1. GPL header
2. Include header files
3. Enums
4. Structures
5. Function prototypes
6. G_DEFINE_TYPE()
7. Static variables
8. Auxiliary functions
9. Callbacks
10. Interface implementations
11. Parent vfunc overrides
12. class_init and init
13. Public API

Include header files

Source files should use the header include order of the following example:

• st-example.c:

#include "config.h"

#include "st-example-private.h"

#include <glib-object.h>
#include <stdint.h>

#ifdef HAVE_MALLINFO2
#include <malloc.h>
#endif

#include "st-private.h"

#include "st-dbus-file-generated-by-gdbus-codegen.h"

Structures

Each structure field has a space after their type name. Structure fields aren't aligned. For example:

struct _StFooBar
{
  StFoo parent;

  StBar *bar;
  StSomething *something;
};

Function Prototypes

Function prototypes must be formatted just like in header files.

Overrides

When overriding parent class vfuncs, or implementing an interface, vfunc overrides should be named as a composition of the current class prefix, followed by the vfunc name. For example:

static void
st_bar_spawn_unicorn (StParent *parent)
{
  /* ... */
}

static void
st_bar_dispose (GObject *object)
{
  /* ... */
}

static void
st_bar_finalize (GObject *object)
{
  /* ... */
}

static void
st_bar_class_init (StBarClass *klass)
{
  GObjectClass *object_class = G_OBJECT_CLASS (klass);
  StParentClass *parent_class = ST_PARENT_CLASS (klass);

  object_class->dispose = st_bar_dispose;
  object_class->finalize = st_bar_finalize;

  parent_class->spawn_unicorn = st_bar_spawn_unicorn;
}

Interface Implementations

When implementing interfaces, two groups of functions are involved: the init function, and the overrides.

The interface init function is named after the interface type in snake case, followed by the _iface_init suffix. For example:

static void st_foo_iface_init (StFooInterface *foo_iface);

G_DEFINE_TYPE_WITH_CODE (StBar, st_bar, G_TYPE_OBJECT,
                         G_IMPLEMENT_INTERFACE (ST_TYPE_FOO,
                                                st_foo_iface_init));

Then, when implementing each vfunc of the interface, follow the same pattern of the Overrides section. Here's an example:

static void
st_bar_do_something (StFoo *foo)
{
  /* ... */
}

static void
st_foo_iface_init (StFooInterface *foo_iface)
{
  foo_iface->do_something = st_bar_do_something;
}

Auxiliary Functions

Auxiliary functions are above every other functions to minimize the number of function prototypes in the file. These functions often grow when factoring out the same code between two or more functions:

static void
do_something_on_data (Foo *data,
                      Bar *bar)
{
  /* ... */
}

static void
random_function (Foo *foo)
{
  do_something_on_data (foo, bar);
}

static void
another_random_function (Foo *foo)
{
  do_something_on_data (foo, bar);
}

Sometimes, however, auxiliary functions are created to break down otherwise large functions - in this case, it is appropriate to keep these auxiliary functions close to the function they are tightly related to.

Auxiliary function names must have a verb in the imperative form, and should always perform an action over something. They usually don't have the class prefix (st_ or shell_). For example:

static void
do_something_on_data (Foo *data,
                      Bar *bar)
{
  /* ... */
}

Exceptionally, when converting between types, auxiliary function names may have the class prefix to this rule. For example:

static StFoo *
st_foo_from_bar (Bar *bar)
{
  /* ... */
}

Callback Functions

Callback function names should have the name of the action in imperative form. They don't have any prefix, but have a _func suffix. For example:

static void
filter_something_func (Foo      *foo,
                       Bar      *bar,
                       gpointer  user_data)
{
  /* ... */
}

Signal Callbacks

Signal callbacks generally have the signal name. They should be prefixed with on_, or suffixed with _cb, but not both. For example:

static void
on_realize (ClutterActor *actor,
            gpointer      user_data)
{
  /* ... */
}

static void
destroy_cb (ClutterActor *actor,
            gpointer      user_data)
{
  /* ... */
}

When the callback is named after the object that generated it, and the signal, then passive voice is used. For example:

static void
click_action_clicked_cb (ClutterClickAction *click_action,
                         ClutterActor       *actor,
                         gpointer            user_data)
{
  /* ... */
}