Leszynski naming convention

The Leszynski naming convention (or LNC) is a variant of Hungarian notation popularized by consultant Stan Leszynski specifically for use with Microsoft Access development. [ [http://msdn.microsoft.com/archive/default.asp?url=/archive/en-us/dnaraccess/html/msdn_20naming.asp Naming Conventions for Microsoft Access (Archived Microsoft Access Content) ] ] Although the naming convention is nowadays often used within the Microsoft Access community, and is standard in Visual Basic programming, it is not widely used elsewhere.

The conventions are derived from an earlier set of conventions, the Leszynski/Reddick naming conventions, originally developed in 1992 by Greg Reddick. Eventually, Leszynski and Reddick had different ideas about how the conventions should be developed, and split into two separate sets of conventions, the other being the RVBA Conventions.

As in all Hungarian notations, it uses prefixes (called "tags") to indicate the type of objects and database development fields. The general structure of Hungarian notation (named after Charles Simonyi's native country) is to break down object names into the following elements: [prefix(es)] [tag] BaseName [Suffix/Qualifier] The tags are always lower-case and each word of the object name is capitalized. Spaces and underscores are not used.

Advantages

The use of distinctive prefixes makes your database self-documenting; when you see "frmSales" in VBA code, you will know that it references a form, and when you see "curSales" you will know that it is a Currency variable. When selecting a query from a drop-down list, you will know that a query starting with "qmak" is a make-table query, while one starting with "quni" is a union query. This information will allow you to avoid errors such as using the SetFocus method (a control method) with a field, or trying to open a table.

Disadvantages

*Changes in database design may require wholesale renaming. For example, replacing a table with a query would involve either retaining the tbl name for the query, or going through the entire database replacing the tbl name with a qry name.
*When transferring the database to a different DBMS, problems will arise if the target DBMS does not support CamelCase names.

Elements

The elements of the naming convention are described in the following table.

References

Part of this article is based on Helen Feddema's book, Expert One-on-One Microsoft Access Application Development, Wiley, ISBN 0-7645-5904-4.

ee also

* Hungarian notation
* Naming conventions (programming)

External links

* [http://c85.cemi.rssi.ru/access/Books/A97ExSol/indexc.htm Leszynski Naming Conventions for Microsoft Solution Developers]
* [http://www.helenfeddema.com/Files/code10.zip LNC Renaming Add-in – A free Access add-in that automatically applies the LNC to an Access 2000, 2002 or 2003 database]
* [http://www.xoc.net/standards/rvbanc.asp RVBA Conventions]