Naming Conventions
The following standards are very strongly recommended for RAMP-TS projects:
- Use characters from the English alphabet (A->Z, a-z) and numbers (0 – 9) only in names. The names are then code page invariant.
- Never use imbedded blanks in names.
- Limit name length to around 30 characters or less. Long names can be confusing and are error prone when scripting and debugging.
- Generally names are case sensitive.
- Never implement a case based naming standard that uses duplicate names. For example, a naming standard that used "EmployeeNumber" for a field on a screen and "EMPLOYEENUMBER" for the same field in a subfile on that screen will surely end up in a tangle at some stage. Names should be unique, regardless of their case.
Naming Prompters
RAMP-TS allows prompters to be automatically associated with named fields on 5250 screens.
When these prompters are defined, they may associate themselves with screen fields by using a specific name like StartDate or generic name like Date_* (meaning that any field whose name starts with Date_ should be associated with this prompter).
If you intend to use the automatic prompt capability with generic names it will probably influence your chosen naming standard.