Question

When developing a library of classes, is there a best practice for naming the files?

I was thinking somehow it should reflect the hierarchy of the classes. I was thinking of implementing something like:

Foundation.parent.class.php // Concrete parent class (Class with common implementations)
File.abstract.class.php     // Abstract class (extends Foundation)  
FileLog.class.php           // Child class (extends File)

So within this convention:

• Concrete classes that are solely used as a base for another class have the suffix parent
• Abstract classes have the suffix abstract
• Child classes start with the class name it is extending

Is this a good implementation or is there a better way?

Answer 1

Naming conventions

Names of files should not have any suffixes of prefixes – only name of class, to make it possible find them by autoloader.

Child classes start with the class
name it is extending

Never. It’s a common practice to add (into name of class) words like Interface, or Abstract, but not names of parents, definitely.