Coding Standards in Software Engineering

Some of the coding standards are given below:

1. Limited use of globals: These rules tell about which types of data that can be declared global and the data that can’t be.
2. Standard headers for different modules: For better understanding and maintenance of the code, the header of different modules should follow some standard format and information. The header format must contain below things that is being used in various companies:
   • Name of the module
   • Date of module creation
   • Author of the module
   • Modification history
   • Synopsis of the module about what the module does
   • Different functions supported in the module along with their input output parameters
   • Global variables accessed or modified by the module
3. Naming conventions for local variables, global variables, constants and functions: Some of the naming conventions are given below:
   • Meaningful and understandable variables name helps anyone to understand the reason of using it.
   • Local variables should be named using camel case lettering starting with small letter (e.g. localData) whereas Global variables names should start with a capital letter (e.g. GlobalData). Constant names should be formed using capital letters only (e.g. CONSDATA).
   • It is better to avoid the use of digits in variable names.
   • The names of the function should be written in camel case starting with small letters.
   • The name of the function must describe the reason of using the function clearly and briefly.
4. Indentation: Proper indentation is very important to increase the readability of the code. For making the code readable, programmers should use White spaces properly. Some of the spacing conventions are given below:
   • There must be a space after giving a comma between two function arguments.
   • Each nested block should be properly indented and spaced.
   • Proper Indentation should be there at the beginning and at the end of each block in the program.
   • All braces should start from a new line and the code following the end of braces also start from a new line.
5. Error return values and exception handling conventions: All functions that encountering an error condition should either return a 0 or 1 for simplifying the debugging.

Different modules specified in the design document are coded in the Coding phase according to the module specification. The main goal of the coding phase is to code from the design document prepared after the design phase through a high-level language and then to unit test this code.