Code Conventions for the Java TM Programming Language

Revised April 20, 1999

The information on this page is for Archive Purposes Only

This page is not being actively maintained. Links within the documentation may not work and the information itself may no longer be valid. The last revision to this document was made on April 20, 1999

  1. Introduction
    1.1 Why Have Code Conventions
    1.2 Acknowledgments
  2. File Names
    2.1 File Suffixes
    2.2 Common File Names
  3. File Organization
    3.1 Java Source Files
    3.1.1 Beginning Comments
    3.1.2 Package and Import Statements
    3.1.3 Class and Interface Declarations
  4. Indentation
    4.1 Line Length
    4.2 Wrapping Lines
  5. Comments
    5.1 Implementation Comment Formats
    5.1.1 Block Comments
    5.1.2 Single-Line Comments
    5.1.3 Trailing Comments
    5.1.4 End-Of-Line Comments
    5.2 Documentation Comments
  6. Declarations
    6.1 Number Per Line
    6.2 Initialization
    6.3 Placement
    6.4 Class and Interface Declarations
  7. Statements
    7.1 Simple Statements
    7.2 Compound Statements
    7.3 return Statements
    7.4 if, if-else, if else-if else Statements
    7.5 for Statements
    7.6 while Statements
    7.7 do-while Statements
    7.8 switch Statements
    7.9 try-catch Statements
  8. White Space
    8.1 Blank Lines
    8.2 Blank Spaces
  9. Naming Conventions
  10. Programming Practices
    10.1 Providing Access to Instance and Class Variables
    10.2 Referring to Class Variables and Methods
    10.3 Constants
    10.4 Variable Assignments
    10.5 Miscellaneous Practices
    10.5.1 Parentheses
    10.5.2 Returning Values
    10.5.3 Expressions before `?' in the Conditional Operator
    10.5.4 Special Comments
  11. Code Examples
    11.1 Java Source File Example