FileNamingConvention

File (and Directory) Naming Convention    (9U)

• It is strongly suggested that a mutually agreed file naming (preferrably with file versioning) convention be adopted by members of a community.    (9V)
• reference this example from the [ontolog] community - see: http://ontolog.cim3.net/forum/ontolog-forum/2004-02/msg00029.html    (9W)

General guidelines and conventions:    (C3N)

• think: does this naming still make sense 10 years from now to an uninitiated user; if not, try making it so    (C3O)
• use the "collective noun" in directory naming - e.g. "file" instead of "files", "resource" instead of "resources", "project" instead of "projects"    (C3P)
• Except for proper nouns and acronyms, use all lower cases in descriptions (the operating environment being case-sensitive) using mixed cases adds unnecessary complexity    (C3Q)
• do not use "space" use a "-" (hyphen) to separate a string of words that makes up, say, a description in the long-filename - e.g. "introduction-to-ontology-development"    (C3R)
• use "--" before author names - e.g. "--JaneDoe"    (C3S)
• do not use "space" use a "_" (underscore) to separate distinct segments of the string of words that makes up the long-filename - e.g. "introduction-to-ontology-development--JaneDoe_20040218b.txt"    (C3T)
• in "20040218b" - "20040218" is a date reference for 2004-02-18 (18-Feb-2012), and "b" is the revision level reference. This string signifies that the document is essentially the second ("b") revision from that same documents, and that this is a "versioned" document.    (C3U)
• when, say, "introduction-to-ontology-development--JaneDoe_20040218?.txt" this indicates that this is the "current" (or "latest version") document.    (C3V)
• Bottomline: try making the long-filename (and long-uri, if we take the entire filepath in account) humanly readable and sensible, while trying to capture a rudimentary set of metadata about that file into the filename that can allow machines to parse the filename and get some pertinent information about it (for search purposes, for example.)    (C3W)
• e.g. mccarthy:/data/cop/ontolog/file/work/tutorial/introduction-to-ontology-development--JaneDoe_20040218b.txt    (C3X)
• or, http://ontolog.cim3.net/file/work/tutorial/introduction-to-ontology-development--JaneDoe_20040218b.txt    (C3Y)