Question

I have always prefixed my Constants with CN_ as shown below but I am now working on coding to accepted standards, which I found linked on this site. The standards say that I should drop the CN_ for my constants. So with the example below, if I change my CN_NetPrice to NetPrice, I will a conflict with the method property of the same name. Obviously I can’t do that so I am left with a question. Do I have a naming convention problem or is there a problem with my code in general?

public class TicketInformation
{
    private const string CN_StartDate = "StartDate";
    private const string CN_EndDate = "EndDate";
    private const string CN_NetPrice = "NetPrice";
    private const string CN_NetTotalPrice = "NetTotalPrice";
    private const string CN_Tickets = "Tickets";

    public decimal NetPrice { get; set; }
    public decimal NetTotalPrice { get; set; }
    public decimal Tickets { get; set; }

    public static TicketInformation Create(DateTime startDate, DateTime endDate)
    {
        try
        {
            TicketInformation ti = new TicketInformation();
            using (DataTable dt = DAC.ExecuteDataTable(
                "GetAllTicketInformationSelect", 
                DAC.Parameter(CN_StartDate, startDate), 
                DAC.Parameter(CN_EndDate, endDate)))
            {
                ti.NetTotalPrice = Convert.ToDecimal(dt.Rows[0][CN_NetTotalPrice]);
                ti.NetPrice = Convert.ToDecimal(dt.Rows[0][CN_NetPrice]);
                ti.Tickets = Convert.ToDecimal(dt.Rows[0][CN_Tickets]);
            }
            return ti;
        }
        catch (Exception ex)

        {
            throw new Exception(Convert.ToString(ex));
        }
    }

}

}

Answer 1

Your constant doesn’t actually represent the net price (etc) does it? It represents the name of the net price column. So I would suggest either:

private const string StartDateColumn = "StartDate";
private const string EndDateColumn = "EndDate";
private const string NetPriceColumn = "NetPrice";
private const string NetTotalPriceColumn = "NetTotalPrice";
private const string TicketsColumn = "Tickets";

Or:

private static class Columns
{
    internal const string StartDate = "StartDate";
    internal const string EndDate = "EndDate";
    internal const string NetPrice = "NetPrice";
    internal const string NetTotalPrice = "NetTotalPrice";
    internal const string Tickets = "Tickets";
}

Or use an enum:

private enum Column
{
    StartDate, EndDate, NetPrice, NetTotalPrice, Tickets;
}

… calling ToString on one of those enum values will give the name.