Developer Style Guide

In general we aim to follow the Julia Style Guide but there are some exceptions due to our specific needs and a different background.

The content of this page are merely guidelines. There may be good reasons to deviate from them in some cases; in that case just do so.

General styleguide

• Use Julia conventions where applicable and when they don't contradict our own rules above.
• Unless really really necessary, don't add new dependencies. Every new dependency complicates the development workflow, in that we will need to stay compatible with this package.
• If already existing types in OSCAR are almost what you need, consider improving them instead of writing your own. While it might be tempting to create a new polynomial ring type for the new application because some feature is missing, it causes a lot of work and compatibility issues: Will the new type support
  • normal functions (gcd, factor),
  • quotient fields,
  • modules and residue rings,
  • conversion to and from other already existing types?
• Whenever functions return the same mathematical object, but in different mathematical categories, the first argument should be the desired return type. One example is projective_space(NormalToricVariety, *) vs projective_space(ProjectiveScheme, *). However, if the return type is different, even if the result describes the same mathematical object, it should be indicated in the function name, for example automorphism_group vs automorphism_group_generators vs automorphism_list.
• Follow the mathematics. If your function needs a list of points, you should create a point-type (or use the one already there) and then use this. For user-facing functions, please do not use re-purposed lists, arrays, matrices...

Naming conventions

The usual Julia naming conventions apply to OSCAR, too (that said, for various reasons our code still violates quite some of them; but in general we strive to reduce these). Here is a summary of the naming convention followed in OSCAR:

• Use CamelCase for types and snake_case for everything else. (Internal functions do not have to follow these rules.) Types (and their constructor) tend to be in CamelCase. However, please also provide the constructor (or a constructor) in snake_case. As a user one usually does not know if something is a constructor or a function.
• For filenames we recommend using snake_case.jl.
• Noteworthy difference to Julia base is that we do not have exceptions for is* or has* as prefix. It is is_foo instead of isfoo and has_bar instead of hasbar. The main reason is to avoid awkward constructions like isvery_ample, while also being consistent. For compatibility with standard Julia, while staying consistent internally, we also provide aliases (using AbstractAlgebra.@alias) for various standard Julia functions, e.g. is_one as alias for isone
• For generic concepts choose generic names, based on general algebraic concepts, preferably not special names from your area of speciality.
• Avoid direct access to members of our objects. This means, do not use something like A.foo, instead use a suitable getter get_foo(A), and if there is none, please write one or request that one be written. Internal member names are free to change at any time, but functions can be deprecated properly.
• In Julia we have multiple dispatch, so we do not need functions like point_from_matrix as the "from" part is clear by the type of the argument. It should be called points(T::Matrix) in some variation. Similarly for matrix_to_points. Of course it is fine to use them internally, where useful.

Code formatting

Editor configuration

Please check if your editor can be configured to honor our .editorconfig file, see https://editorconfig.org for more information about this.

Unicode

As most modern programming languages, Julia allows the use of Unicode, e.g., α, in the REPL as well as in source code. As this reduces accessibility to various groups of users and developers, the use of Unicode should be kept to a minimum. Here is a general principle:

Do not use Unicode characters inside functions. See below for the exception concerning printing.

Whitespace

• Do not use tabs.
• Do not put spaces "inside" parenthesis.
• Do put spaces after commas.

Good example:

f(x, y) = x + 1
print(f(1, 2))

Bad example:

f( x,y ) = x + 1
print( f ( 1,2 ) )

Loops and other control structures

• for loops should use in not =
• don't put spaces around the : in a range

Good example:

for i in 1:3
  println(i)
end

Bad example:

for i = 1 : 3
  println(i)
end

Code structure

• do not nest loops and if clauses too deeply; if you are using 5 or more levels, then in general that's a hint that you should refactor; e.g.

  • by moving parts of the code into a separate function
  • by replacing guard constructs like

    for i in A
      if flag
        ...
      end
    end

    by

    for i in A
      if !flag
        continue
      end
      ...
    end

    or

    for i in A
      flag ||continue
      ...
    end

  • by merging loops: you can replace

    for i in A
      for j in B
        ...
      end
    end

    by

    for i in A, j in B
      ...
    end

• Functions should not have too many arguments. If you need a bunch arguments, chances are that introducing a new type makes it more readable.

• Functions should not be too long; very long functions are in general harder to understand; it is also more difficult to see all the code at once. Consider splitting the function into multiple ones, if it is sensibly possible.

• Every export statement must be confined to a single line; the intention is to make it easy to use tools like git grep to find exports. In general it is recommended export exactly one identifier per export statement. Exceptions may be made for certain tightly related identifiers, e.g. is_finite, set_is_finite and has_is_finite could be put on a single line. In general if multiple export statements appear in sequence, they must be sorted alphabetically.

However, as always, rules sometimes should be broken.

Documentation

• In general we try to follow the list of recommendations in the Documentation section of the Julia manual.

• Via the MathJax integration it is possible to use LaTeX code, and this is the preferred way to denote the mathematical symbols in the docstrings.

Printing in Oscar

The 2 + 1 print modes of Oscar

Oscar has two user print modes detailed and one line and one internal print mode :supercompact. The latter is for use during recursion, e.g. to print the base_ring(X) when in one line mode. It exists to make sure that one line stays compact and human readable.

Top-level REPL printing of an object will use detailed mode by default

julia> X
detailed

Inside nested structures, e.g. inside a Vector, the one line mode is used.

julia> [X,X]
3-element Vector{TypeofX{T}}
one line
one line
one line

An Example for the 2 + 1 print modes

# detailed
General linear group of degree 24
  over Finite field of degree 7 over GF(29)

# one line
General linear group of degree 24 over GF(29^7)

# supercompact
General linear group

The print modes are specified as follows

Detailed printing

• the output must make sense as a standalone without context to non-specialists
• the number of output lines should fit in the terminal
• if the object is simple enough use only one line
• use indentation and (usually) one line to print substructures

One line printing

• the output must print in one line
• should make sense as a standalone without context
• variable names/generators/relations should not be printed only their number.
• Only the first word is capitalized e.g. Polynomial ring
• one should use :supercompact for nested printing in compact
• nested calls to one line (if you think them really necessary) should be at the end, so that one can read sequentially. Calls to :supercompact can be anywhere.
• commas must be enclosed in brackets so that printing tuples stays unambiguous

Super compact printing

• a user readable version of the main (mathematical) type.
• a single term or a symbol/letter mimicking mathematical notation
• should usually only depend on the type and not of the type parameters or of the concrete instance - exceptions of this rule are possible e.g. for GF(2)
• no nested printing. In particular variable names and base_ring must not be displayed. This ensures that one line and :supercompact stay compact even for complicated things. If you want nested printing use one line or detailed.

For further information and examples we refer you to our section Details on printing in Oscar.

Deprecating functions

Sometimes it is necessary to rename a function or otherwise change it. To allow for backwards compatibility, please then introduce a new line in the file src/deprecations.jl. The syntax is as follows:

# Deprecated after CURRENT_RELEASE_VERSION
@deprecate old_function(args) new_function(args)

It is possible to transform the args too, if the syntax has changed. If this process needs an auxiliary function, which otherwise is unnecessary, please add it above:

# Deprecated after CURRENT_RELEASE_VERSION
function transform_args_for_new_function(args)
    # Do something
    return new_args
end
@deprecate old_function(args) new_function(transform_args_for_new_function(args))

The comment about the version number is only necessary if you are the first one adding to deprecations.jl after a release, otherwise please add to the existing block.

Approved abbreviations

• Types for rings/groups/ideals/modules/... end with Ring/Group/Ideal/Module/...
• Types for elements should have the same name as the type of the parent with Elem added;
  • Exception: MatrixSpace elements end with Matrix.
• We abbreviate certain parts of type names, according to a fixed set of substitutions; further abbreviations should be carefully decided upon.
• Every abbreviation must be unique; e.g. Abs stands for Absolute, and so must not be used for e.g. Abstract.
• List of approved abbreviations
  • absolute -> Abs
    • abstract -> Abstract
  • decorated -> Dec
  • group -> Group
  • ideal -> Ideal
  • localized -> Loc
  • matrix -> Matrix
  • module -> Module
  • multivariate polynomial -> MPoly
  • polynomial -> Poly
  • quotient -> Quo
  • relative -> Rel
  • ring ->Ring
  • subquotient -> Subquo
• If a type comes in sparse and dense variants, then call the dense type T and the sparse one SparseT.