how to abbreviate dimension following the PEP8 rules?

Question

I must add a function for creating 3D textures. I am using snail case in the entire module.

My choices are:

def texture_3d(...):
    pass

def texture_3D(...):
    pass

def texture3D(...):
    pass

What should be the name of the function?

I am not interested in opinions: which one looks better. I need a few references to other modules to see the best practice.

Please mention at least 1 module having similar functions.

Answer 1

PEP 8 states lowercase with underscore separation between words for function names. Now, because it seems opinionated if 3d/3D is an actual word, you'll get conflicts between the names texture_3d and texture3d (with d being lowercase).

Looking at a number of numpy functions, for example, lagval3d, laggrid3d, hermegrid3d the name texture3d looks like a good choice.

Searching for similar names in the matplotlib docs yields a mixed result between <name>3d and <name>_3d.

In short, both these names seem to be accepted, based on two major packages. Boils down to personal choice between the two.

Answer 2

Rather than depending on mere human opinion, perhaps we could ask the horse? (As in 'getting it from the horse's mouth'.) In other words, use pylint.

I modified your code so that it would generate fewer messages.

''' some information here'''

def texture_3d(parameters):
    ''' a docstring'''
    return parameters

def texture_3D(parameters):
    ''' a docstring'''
    return parameters

def texture3D(parameters):
    ''' a docstring'''
    return parameters

The results of pylint were:

************* Module temp
C:  7, 0: Invalid function name "texture_3D" (invalid-name)
C: 11, 0: Invalid function name "texture3D" (invalid-name)

------------------------------------------------------------------
Your code has been rated at 6.67/10 (previous run: 5.00/10, +1.67)

Which just leaves the option texture_3d.