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ValueTree property naming best practices

General JUCE discussion
#1

I’m wondering what is the best practice as far as a naming identifiers used in the ValueTree?

For example I have two different node types in the tree, SYNTH and OUTPUT. Each one of them has an index property. Should I create two different identifiers, SYNTH_IDX and OUTPUT_IDX or is it fine to just use a single identifier called IDX? Would there be downsides to that when trying to differentiate between them in the property changed listeners, or maybe in other scenarios?

#2

So long as you check the ValueTree type before comparing any property IDs, I think there wouldn’t be any problems with using the same Identifier object. I’d prefer to create separate IDs just to avoid that being a potential source of errors, though.

I like to use different namespaces for each type of ValueTree node. Something like:

namespace SynthIds
{
    static const juce::Identifier SYNTH ("SYNTH");
    static const juce::Identifier index ("index");
}

namespace OutputIds
{
    static const juce::Identifier OUTPUT ("OUTPUT");
    static const juce::Identifier index ("index");
}

As you can see, I also like to use different casing styles for ValueTree ids and property ids, but that’s just personal preference.

#3

I use PascalCase/TitleCase for types and camelCase for properties. Full uppercase reminds me too much of HTML :slight_smile:

2 Likes
#4

I use this same convention

#5

My question was more about the actual names of the properties, not the casing :slight_smile:

#6

Ah yes I see now. Yes I would reuse the same properties across different types.