Question

I’ve seen some variable declare in VB.net in several way like:

print('dim _Foo as string'); 

and print(‘dim m_Foo as string’); and print(‘dim foo as string’);

I will like to know what’s the standard for VB.net coding.

Answer 1

It all depends on the scope. In the case of:

Private Dim m_Foo As String 

That implies that m_Foo is a member of a class. This also implies the same thing:

Private Dim _Foo As String 

It’s a matter of preference.

On the other hand, something like this:

Dim Foo As String 

might refer to a variable local to a given method. Some might even prefix it with a ‘l_’:

Dim l_Foo As String 

Declaring like these examples helps in determining scope when scanning code. Putting it all together, here’s a sample class showing a well-known naming convention (but not the only one):

Public Class Bar     Private m_firstName As String      Public Sub New(ByVal firstName As String)         m_firstName = firstName     End Sub      Public Function SayGreeting() As String         Dim l_Greeting As String         l_Greeting = String.Format('{0}, {1}!', 'Hello', m_firstName)         Return l_Greeting     End Function End Class