Quick silly question - what is 'bas'? (1 Viewer)

[Keith Nichols]

A lot of modules I see in sample databases are titled "bas_xxxxx". What does the "bas" signify and should I be using it for my modules?


Regards,

Keith.

 

[mhartman]

Hello
the bas extension is a hold-over from the days of Quick basic, Turbobasic, Visual basic, and such applications, thus the abreviated "bas" extension. It was used to denote ancillary modules that held global code that could be incorporated into user projects. It is still widely used, but sort of cryptic. I use the extension "mod" to preface any global modules that I make, such as "modPrintRoutines", "modStringRoutines" and such. This makes it clear that it is a module of code.
Regards
Mark

 

[Keith Nichols]

A trap for new players! Thanks Mark, now that I know, I will be using 'mod' myself.

Regards,

Keith.

 

[mhartman]

Hello:
Your welcome. Just side note for whatever it is worth,this convention of prefacing object names in lower case, is called the "Hungarian" naming style. It was named after the native country of its inventor Charles Simonyi. Most professional Access developers adhere to this convention. Some Access examples are as follows:
'
"tbl" for table: tblEmployees, "qry" for query: qryEmployees, "frm" for form: frmEmployees, and of course "mod" for module. I believe there is a wealth of information on the subject on the Internet. Also, this convention is used in programming as well for the naming of variables and such.

Regards
Mark

 

[Keith Nichols]

"Hungarian" naming style. It was named after the native country of its inventor Charles Simonyi.

Some time ago I downloaded a naming convention and followed it fairly rigidly apart from adding underscores between the identifier and the name i.e. tbl_Employees etc. I didn't think to lok there for bas for some reason.

A quick check shows that "bas" is indeed there and listed as 'module' so maybe bas is what I should be using, even though it no longer reflects the description of the object. I don't know - I like 'mod' better.

LESZYNSKI (HUNGARIAN) NAMING CONVENTION

The LESZYNSKI naming convention is now the internationally accepted standard, for MS Access object naming.

For a professionally developed database application you should use the LESZYNSKI naming convention with case mix instead of spaces to identify the next word. Non SQL passable characters should be avoided to reduce the overall length of the SQL statement generated by QBE and for easier programming.

Avoid using the following characters: ,.~!@#$%^&*()+-=|\:;'<>?/"`[]{}

Incidentally, the underscore that I favour to make titles more legible is not one of the characters that they recommend to avoid. Having said that, it was recommended to avoid it on a object naming thread on the forum as underscores can cause problems when upgrading to SQL. Or something like that.

The link below is a web site with all the goods on this, which incidentally, disagrees slightly with the history you gave.

http://www.acc-technology.com/namconv.htm

Anyway, now I know, I have the choice.

Regards,

Keith.

 

[mhartman]

Hello Again

Thank you very much on that. I stand corrected. Charles Simonyi developed the naming developed the Hungarian notation for naming variables. Both these folks struck on brilliant way of making an application and its code "self documenting" by just looking at it if the code and objects within it.
Below is link about Simonyi. He is one accomplished individual.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Simonyi
Best of luck on all your projects
Sincerely
Mark

 

[Keith Nichols]

Many thanks one and all

Best of luck on all your projects

Thanks Mark. I need the luck, but the selfless help given by all the posters on this forum, in reply to my 144 posts to date, is what got me through to having a working application.

I guess the possibility of Access is so great that many people (i.e. me) get involved in attempting things way beyond their current level of understanding. Sort of falls into the "Stuff I don't know I don't know" basket. Without the help given here, I wouldn't have got past my desktop.

It has been a fascinating learning experience for me and I am truly grateful to all the gurus out there, especial the super-gurus who seem to monitor and post 24/7 with fast and concise snippets of wisdom.

You are appreciated!

Regards,

Keith.