Use visually distinct identifiers to eliminate errors resulting from misrecognizing the spelling of an identifier during the develoment development and review of code. Depending on the fonts used, certain characters are visually similar or even identical:
- '1' (one) and 'l' (lower case ellel)
- '0' (zero) and 'O' (capital oho)
Do not define multiple identifiers which that vary only vary with respect to one or more visually similar characters.
When using long identifiers, try to make the initial portions of the identifiers unique for easier recognition. This also helps prevent errors resulting from non-unique identifiers (DCL32-C).
References
- ISO/IEC 9899-1999 5.2.4.1 Translation limits
- MISRA 04 Rule 5.1