Introduction

Although Nim supports a variety of code and formatting styles, it is nevertheless beneficial that certain community efforts, such as the standard library, should follow a consistent set of style guidelines when suitable. This enhancement proposal aims to list a series of guidelines that the standard library should follow.

Note that there can be exceptions to these rules. Nim being as flexible as it is, there will be parts of this style guide that don't make sense in certain contexts. Furthermore, just as Python's style guide changes over time, this style guide will too.

These rules will only be enforced for contributions to the Nim codebase and official projects, such as the Nim compiler, the standard library, and the various official tools such as C2Nim.

Style Guidelines

Spacing and Whitespace Conventions

• Lines should be no longer than 80 characters. Limiting the amount of information present on each line makes for more readable code - the reader has smaller chunks to process.
• Two spaces should be used for indentation of blocks; tabstops are not allowed (the compiler enforces this). Using spaces means that the appearance of code is more consistent across editors. Unlike spaces, tabstop width varies across editors, and not all editors provide means of changing this width.
• Although use of whitespace for stylistic reasons other than the ones endorsed by this guide are allowed, careful thought should be put into such practices. Not all editors support automatic alignment of code sections, and re-aligning long sections of code by hand can quickly become tedious.

  # This is bad, as the next time someone comes
  # to edit this code block, they
  # must re-align all the assignments again:
  type
    WordBool*    = int16
    CalType*     = int
    ... # 5 lines later
    CalId*       = int
    LongLong*    = int64
    LongLongPtr* = ptr LongLong

Naming Conventions

• Type identifiers should be in PascalCase. All other identifiers should be in camelCase with the exception of constants which may use PascalCase but are not required to.

  # Constants can start with either a lower case or upper case letter.
  const aConstant = 42
  const FooBar = 4.2
  
  var aVariable = "Meep" # Variables must start with a lowercase letter.
  
  # Types must start with an uppercase letter.
  type
    FooBar = object

  For constants coming from a C/C++ wrapper, ALL_UPPERCASE are allowed, but ugly. (Why shout CONSTANT? Constants do no harm, variables do!)

• When naming types that come in value, pointer, and reference varieties, use a regular name for the variety that is to be used the most, and add a "Obj", "Ref", or "Ptr" suffix for the other varieties. If there is no single variety that will be used the most, add the suffixes to the pointer variants only. The same applies to C/C++ wrappers.

  type
    Handle = object # Will be used most often
      fd: int64
    HandleRef = ref Handle # Will be used less often

• Exception and Error types should have the "Error" or "Defect" suffix.

  type
    ValueError = object of CatchableError
    AssertionDefect = object of Defect
    Foo = object of Exception # bad style, try to inherit CatchableError or Defect

• Unless marked with the {.pure.} pragma, members of enums should have an identifying prefix, such as an abbreviation of the enum's name.

  type
    PathComponent = enum
      pcDir
      pcLinkToDir
      pcFile
      pcLinkToFile

• Non-pure enum values should use camelCase whereas pure enum values should use PascalCase.

  type
    PathComponent {.pure.} = enum
      Dir
      LinkToDir
      File
      LinkToFile

• In the age of HTTP, HTML, FTP, TCP, IP, UTF, WWW it is foolish to pretend these are somewhat special words requiring all uppercase. Instead treat them as what they are: Real words. So it's parseUrl rather than parseURL, checkHttpHeader instead of checkHTTPHeader etc.
• Operations like mitems or mpairs (or the now deprecated mget) that allow a mutating view into some data structure should start with an m.
• When both in-place mutation and 'returns transformed copy' are available the latter is a past participle of the former:
  • reverse and reversed in algorithm
  • sort and sorted
  • rotate and rotated
• When the 'returns transformed copy' version already exists like strutils.replace an in-place version should get an -In suffix (replaceIn for this example).
• Use subjectVerb, not verbSubject, e.g.: fileExists, not existsFile.

The stdlib API is designed to be easy to use and consistent. Ease of use is measured by the number of calls to achieve a concrete high level action. The ultimate goal is that the programmer can guess a name.

The library uses a simple naming scheme that makes use of common abbreviations to keep the names short but meaningful.

Coding Conventions

• The return statement should ideally be used when its control-flow properties are required. Use a procedure's implicit result variable whenever possible. This improves readability.

  proc repeat(text: string, x: int): string =
    result = ""
    
    for i in 0..x:
      result.add($i)

• Use a proc when possible, only using the more powerful facilities of macros, templates, iterators, and converters when necessary.
• Use the let statement (not the var statement) when declaring variables that do not change within their scope. Using the let statement ensures that variables remain immutable, and gives those who read the code a better idea of the code's purpose.

Conventions for multi-line statements and expressions

• Tuples which are longer than one line should indent their parameters to align with the parameters above it.

  type
    LongTupleA = tuple[wordyTupleMemberOne: int, wordyTupleMemberTwo: string,
                       wordyTupleMemberThree: float]

• Similarly, any procedure and procedure type declarations that are longer than one line should do the same thing.

  type
    EventCallback = proc (timeReceived: Time, errorCode: int, event: Event,
                          output: var string)
  
  proc lotsOfArguments(argOne: string, argTwo: int, argThree: float,
                       argFour: proc(), argFive: bool): int
                      {.heyLookALongPragma.} =

• Multi-line procedure calls should continue on the same column as the opening parenthesis (like multi-line procedure declarations).

  startProcess(nimExecutable, currentDirectory, compilerArguments
               environment, processOptions)

Miscellaneous

• Use a..b instead of a .. b, except when b contains an operator, for example a .. -3. Likewise with a..<b, a..^b and other operators starting with ...
• Use std prefix for standard library modules, namely use std/os for single module and use std/[os, sysrand, posix] for multiple modules.

• Prefer multiline triple quote literals to start with a newline; it's semantically identical (it's a feature of triple quote literals) but clearer because it aligns with the next line:

  use this:

  let a = """
  foo
  bar
  """

  instead of:

  let a = """foo
  bar
  """

• A getter API for a private field foo should preferably be named foo, not getFoo.

  A getter-like API should preferably be named getFoo, not foo if:

  • the API has side effects
  • or the cost is not O(1)

  For in between cases, there is no clear guideline.

• Likewise with a setter API, replacing foo with foo= and getFoo with setFoo in the above text.