[geany/geany] ea217b: Update HACKING for best practices (C99)

[Matthew Brush]

Branch:      refs/heads/master
Author:      Matthew Brush <matt at geany.org>
Committer:   Matthew Brush <mbrush at codebrainz.ca>
Date:        Fri, 04 Aug 2017 09:09:37 UTC
Commit:      ea217b7d4d9997e46a41f97d0da180639105d6ad
             https://github.com/geany/geany/commit/ea217b7d4d9997e46a41f97d0da180639105d6ad

Log Message:
-----------
Update HACKING for best practices (C99)


Modified Paths:
--------------
    HACKING

Modified: HACKING
14 lines changed, 12 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-)
===================================================================
@@ -200,8 +200,18 @@ Coding
   moment, we want to keep the minimum requirement for GTK at 2.24 (of
   course, you can use the GTK_CHECK_VERSION macro to protect code using
   later versions).
-* Variables should be declared before statements. You can use
-  gcc's -Wdeclaration-after-statement to warn about this.
+* Variables should be declared (and initialized) as close as practical
+  to their first use. This reduces the chances of intervening code being
+  inserted between declaration and use, where the variable may be
+  uninitialized.
+* Variables should be defined within the smallest scope that is practical,
+  for example inside a conditional branch which uses them or in the
+  initialization part of a for loop.
+* Local variables that will not be modified should be marked as ``const``
+  to indicate intention. This allows the compiler to give a warning if
+  part of the code accidentally tries to change the value. This does not
+  apply to non-pointer parameters where it needlessly exposes the
+  implementation and it's obvious a copy is made anyway.
 * Don't let variable names shadow outer variables - use gcc's -Wshadow
   option.
 * Do not use G_LIKELY or G_UNLIKELY (except in critical loops). These



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