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Abstract

This document was created when I, as the Technical Lead of the company in which I work for, was asked by the CTO to create some internal documents describing good style and best practices for Ruby programming. I started off by copying this existing style guide, since I concurred with most of the points in it and then proceeded to built upon it. I hope it will be useful to other people as well and I hope that I'll get a lot of feedback and suggestions on how to improve the guide for the benefit of the entire Ruby community.

Formatting

  • Use UTF-8 as the source file encoding.

  • Use 2 space indent, no tabs. (Your editor/IDE should have a setting to help you with that)

  • Use Unix-style line endings. (Linux/OSX users are covered by default, Windows users have to be extra careful)

    • if you're using Git you might want to do this $ git config --global core.autocrlf true to protect your project from Windows line endings creeping into your project
  • Use spaces around operators, after commas, colons and semicolons, around { and before }.

      sum = 1 + 2
      a, b = 1, 2
      1 > 2 ? true : false; puts "Hi"
      [1, 2, 3].each { |e| puts e }
    
  • No spaces after (, [ and before ], ).

      some(arg).other
      [1, 2, 3].length
    
  • Indent when as deep as case. (as suggested in the Pickaxe)

      case
      when song.name == "Misty"
        puts "Not again!" when song.duration > 120
        puts "Too long!" when Time.now.hour > 21
        puts "It's too late"
      else
        song.play
      end
    
      kind = case year
             when 1850..1889 then "Blues"
             when 1890..1909 then "Ragtime"
             when 1910..1929 then "New Orleans Jazz" when 1930..1939 then "Swing"
             when 1940..1950 then "Bebop"
             else "Jazz"
             end
    
  • Use an empty line before the return value of a method (unless it only has one line), and an empty line between defs.

      def some_method
        do_something
        do_something_else
    
        result
      end
    
      def some_method
        result
      end
    
  • Use RDoc and its conventions for API documentation. Don't put an empty line between the comment block and the def.

  • Use empty lines to break up a method into logical paragraphs.

  • Keep lines fewer than 80 characters.

    • Emacs users should really have a look at whitespace-mode
  • Avoid trailing whitespace.

    • Emacs users - whitespace-mode again comes to the rescue

Syntax

  • Use def with parentheses when there are arguments. Omit the parentheses when the method doesn't accept any arguments. def some_method # body omitted end

      def some_method_with_arguments(arg1, arg2)
        # body omitted
      end
    
  • Never use for, unless you exactly know why. Most of the time iterators should be used instead.

      arr = [1, 2, 3]
      
      # bad
      for elem in arr do
        puts elem
      end
    
      # good
      arr.each { |elem| puts elem }
    
  • Never use then for multiline if/unless.

      # bad
      if x.odd? then
        puts "odd"
      end
    
      # good
      if x.odd?
        puts "odd"
      end
    
  • Use when x; ... for one-line cases.

  • Use &&/|| for boolean expressions, and/or for control flow. (Rule of thumb: If you have to use outer parentheses, you are using the wrong operators.)

  • Avoid multiline ?: (the ternary operator), use if/unless instead.

  • Favor modifier if/unless usage when you have a single-line body.

      # bad
      if some_condition
        do_something
      end
    
      # good
      do_something if some_condition
    
      # another good option
      some_condition && do_something
    
  • Favor unless over if for negative conditions:

      # bad
      do_something if !some_condition
    
      # good
      do_something unless some_condition
    
      # another good option
      some_condition || do_something
    
  • Suppress superfluous parentheses when calling methods, but keep them when calling "functions", i.e. when you use the return value in the same line. x = Math.sin(y) array.delete e

  • Prefer {...} over do...end for single-line blocks. Avoid using {...} for multi-line blocks. Always use do...end for "control flow" and "method definitions" (e.g. in Rakefiles and certain DSLs.) Avoid do...end when chaining.

  • Avoid return where not required.

      # bad
      def some_method(some_arr)
        return some_arr.size
      end
    
      # good
      def some_method(some_arr)
        some_arr.size
      end
    
  • Avoid line continuation (\) where not required. In practice avoid using line continuations at all.

      # bad
      result = 1 + \
      2
    
      # good
      result = 1 \
      + 2
    
  • Using the return value of = is okay:

      if v = array.grep(/foo/) ...
    
  • Use ||= freely.

      # set name to Bozhidar, only if it's nil or false
      name ||= "Bozhidar"
    
  • Avoid using Perl-style global variables(like $0-9, $`, ...)

Naming

  • Use snake_case for methods and variables.

  • Use CamelCase for classes and modules. (Keep acronyms like HTTP, RFC, XML uppercase.)

  • Use SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE for other constants.

  • The length of an identifier determines its scope. Use one-letter variables for short block/method parameters, according to this scheme:

      a,b,c: any object
      d: directory names
      e: elements of an Enumerable
      ex: rescued exceptions
      f: files and file names
      i,j: indexes
      k: the key part of a hash entry
      m: methods
      o: any object
      r: return values of short methods
      s: strings
      v: any value
      v: the value part of a hash entry
      x,y,z: numbers
    

    And in general, the first letter of the class name if all objects are of that type.

  • When using inject with short blocks, name the arguments |a, e| (mnemonic: accumulator, element)

  • When defining binary operators, name the argument "other". def +(other) # body omitted end

  • Prefer map over collect, find over detect, find_all over select, size over length. This is not a hard requirement, though - if the use of the alias enhances readability - it's ok to use it.

Comments

  • Write self documenting code and ignore the rest of this section.
  • Comments longer than a word are capitalized and use punctuation. Use two spaces after periods.
  • Avoid superfluous comments.
  • Keep existing comments up-to-date - no comment is better than an outdated comment.

Misc

  • Write ruby -w safe code.

  • Avoid hashes-as-optional-parameters. Does the method do too much?

  • Avoid long methods (longer than 10 LOC). Ideally most methods will be shorter than 5 LOC. Empty line do not contribute to the relevant LOC.

  • Avoid long parameter lists (more than 3-4 params).

  • Use def self.method to define singleton methods. This makes the methods more resistent to refactoring changes.

      class TestClass
        # bad
        def TestClass.some_method
          # body omitted
        end
    
        # good
        def self.some_other_method
          # body omitted
        end
      end
    
  • Add "global" methods to Kernel (if you have to) and make them private.

  • Avoid alias when alias_method will do.

  • Use OptionParser for parsing complex command line options and *ruby -s for trivial command line options.

  • Write for Ruby 1.9. Don't use legacy Ruby 1.8 constructs.

    • use the new JavaScript literal hash syntax
    • use the new lambda syntax
    • methods like inject now accept methods names as arguments - [1, 2, 3].inject(:+)
  • Avoid needless metaprogramming.

Design

  • Code in a functional way, avoid mutation when it makes sense.
  • Do not mutate arguments unless that is the purpose of the method.
  • Do not mess around in core classes when writing libraries. (do not monkey patch them)
  • Do not program defensively. See this article for more details.
  • Keep the code simple (subjective, but still...). Each method should have a single well-defined responsibility.
  • Avoid more than 3 Level of block nesting.
  • Don't overdesign. Overly complex solutions tend to be brittle and hard to maintain.
  • Don't underdesign. A solution to a problem should be as simple as possible... but it should be simpler than that. Poor initial design can lead to a lot of problems in the future.
  • Be consistent. In an ideal world - be consistent with the points listed here in this guidelines.
  • Use common sense.

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A totally unofficial Ruby coding style guide

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