Question

C# has a few naming conventions for commonly-seen method types:

• BeginFoo() / EndFoo() for async methods
• TryGet() / TryParse() that return false instead of throwing an exception
• FooOrDefault() for methods that return default(T) instead of throwing an exception
• IsFoo for boolean flags

I was wondering, is there one for recursive inner methods? e.g. in this example from another Stack Overflow question:

public int CalculateSomethingRecursively(int someNumber)
{
    return doSomethingRecursively(someNumber, 0);
}

// What to call this? 
private int doSomethingRecursively(int someNumber, int level)
{
    if (level >= MAX_LEVEL || !shouldKeepCalculating(someNumber))
        return someNumber;
    return doSomethingRecursively(someNumber, level + 1);
}

In C I have seen people use foo(...) + foo_r(...) as a convention. But how about in .NET?

Answer 1

Personally I’d probably call it CalculateSomethingRecursivelyImpl – I tend to use Impl as a suffix for “the private method which actually does the bulk of the work of the method which has the same name but without the suffix.” The fact that it’s recursive wouldn’t change that for me – but it’s only a personal choice.

To be honest though, such a method would presumably always be private – so it doesn’t matter nearly as much as for public / protected methods. Just work out a convention with your other team members.