Question

To sum it up, there are two basic trains of thought:

• The private field should just be CamelCase to match the .NET guidelines
• The private field should be CamelCase but with a _ pre-appended to tell the difference between method scope variables and class scope variables.

Original Post

Take the following example

public class Class1{

    public string Prop1{
        get {return m_Prop1;}
        set {m_Prop1 = value; }
    }
    private string m_Prop1; // This is standard private property variable name.

    // How do we cap this variable name? While the compiler can figure out same casing
    // it makes it hard to read.
    private Class2 Class2;

    // We camel case the parameter.
    public Class1(Class2 class2){
      this.Class2 = class2;
    }
}

Here are my stock rules

• The class name is capitalized (Class1)
• The public properties are capitalized (Prop1)
• The private field tied to a public property has m_ to indicate this. My coworker prefers _. There is some debate if using m_ or _ should be used at all, as it is like Hungarian notation.
• Private class fields are capitalized.

The part I am trying to figure out is what do I do if when the class name of a private field matches the private field name. For example, private Class2 Class2;. This is confusing.

If the private field name is not the same class, for example private string Name;, there isn’t much issue.

Or am I thinking about the issue in the wrong way? Should my classes and private fields be named in such a way that they don’t collide?

===

The consensus below is to use lower case private property names, but then we have this issue.

class1{
    private string name; // This is scoped to the class.

    public void Set(){
      string firstName; // This is scoped to the method.
      .... // Lot of code.
      // Should use this.name but nothing prevents.
      // Now there is confusion if name is a class property or scoped to the method.
      name = firstName;
}

Answer 1

Or ReSharper’s guidelines.

Private properties, are cased like any other property.
Private fields, are lower case, starting with an underscore.

    private string _foo = string.Empty;
    private string Bar { get; set; }