What are the different kinds of cases?

Question

I'm interested in the different kinds of identifier cases, and what people call them. Do you know of any additions to this list, or other alternative names?

• myIdentifier : Camel case (e.g. in java variable names)
• MyIdentifier : Capital camel case (e.g. in java class names)
• my_identifier : Snake case (e.g. in python variable names)
• my-identifier : Kebab case (e.g. in racket names)
• myidentifier : Flat case (e.g. in java package names)
• MY_IDENTIFIER : Upper case (e.g. in C constant names)

Answer 1

Names are either generic, after a language, or colorful; most don’t have a standard name outside of a specific community.

There are many names for these naming conventions (names for names!); see Naming convention: Multiple-word identifiers, particularly for CamelCase (UpperCamelCase, lowerCamelCase). However, many don’t have a standard name. Consider the Python style guide PEP 0008 – it calls them by generic names like “lower_case_with_underscores”.

One convention is to name after a well-known use. This results in:

• PascalCase
• MACRO_CASE (C preprocessor macros)

…and suggests these names, which are not widely used:

• c_case (used in K&R and in the standard library, like size_t)
• lisp-case, css-case
• COBOL-CASE

Alternatively, there are illustrative names, of which the best established is CamelCase. snake_case is more recent (2004), but is now well-established. kebab-case is yet more recent and still not established, and may have originated on Stack Overflow! (What's the name for dash-separated case?) There are many more colorful suggestions, like caterpillar-case, Train-case (initial capital), caravan-case, etc.

Answer 2

• flatcase
• kebab-case. Also called caterpillar-case, dash-case, hyphen-case, lisp-case, spinal-case and css-case
• camelCase
• PascalCase or CapitalCamelCase
• snake_case or c_case
• MACRO_CASE or UPPER_CASE
• COBOL-CASE or TRAIN-CASE

Answer 3

+--------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+
| Formatting               | Name(s)                                                     |
+--------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------|
| namingidentifier         | flat case/Lazy Case                                         |
| NAMINGIDENTIFIER         | upper flat case                                             |
| namingIdentifier         | (lower) camelCase, dromedaryCase                            |
| NamingIdentifier         | (upper) CamelCase, PascalCase, StudlyCase, CapitalCamelCase |
| naming_identifier        | snake_case, snake_case, pothole_case, C Case                |
| Naming_Identifier        | Camel_Snake_Case                                            |
| NAMING_IDENTIFIER        | SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE, MACRO_CASE, UPPER_CASE, CONSTANT_CASE |
| naming-identifier        | Kebab Case/caterpillar-case/dash-case, hyphen-case,         |
|                          | lisp-case, spinal-case and css-case                         |
| NAMING-IDENTIFIER        | TRAIN-CASE, COBOL-CASE, SCREAMING-KEBAB-CASE                |
| Naming-Identifier        | Train-Case, HTTP-Header-Case                                |
| _namingIdentifier        | Undercore Notation (prefixed by "_" followed by camelCase   |
| datatypeNamingIdentifier | Hungarian Notation (variable names Prefixed by metadata     |
|                          | data-types which is out-dated)                              |
|--------------------------+-------------------------------------------------------------+

Answer 4

MyVariable : Pascal Case => Used for Class

myVariable : Camel Case => Used for variable at Java, C#, etc.

myvariable : Flat Case => Used for package at Java, etc.

my_variable : Snake Case => Used for variable at Python, PHP, etc.

my-variable : Kebab Case => Used for css

Answer 5

The most common case types: Camel case Snake case Kebab case Pascal case Upper case (with snake case)

camelCase camelCase must (1) start with a lowercase letter and (2) the first letter of every new subsequent word has its first letter capitalized and is compounded with the previous word.

An example of camel case of the variable camel case var is camelCaseVar.

snake_case snake_case is as simple as replacing all spaces with a "_" and lowercasing all the words. It's possible to snake_case and mix camelCase and PascalCase but imo, that ultimately defeats the purpose.

An example of snake case of the variable snake case var is snake_case_var.

kebab-case kebab-case is as simple as replacing all spaces with a "-" and lowercasing all the words. It's possible to kebab-case and mix camelCase and PascalCase but that ultimately defeats the purpose.

An example of kebab case of the variable kebab case var is kebab-case-var.

PascalCase PascalCase has every word starts with an uppercase letter (unlike camelCase in that the first word starts with a lowercase letter).

An example of pascal case of the variable pascal case var is PascalCaseVar.

Note: It's common to see this confused for camel case, but it's a separate case type altogether.

UPPER_CASE_SNAKE_CASE UPPER_CASE_SNAKE_CASE is replacing all the spaces with a "_" and converting all the letters to capitals.

an example of upper case snake case of the variable upper case snake case var is UPPER_CASE_SNAKE_CASE_VAR.