.NET Framework General Reference - Capitalization Styles

Use the following three conventions for capitalizing identifiers.

Pascal case

The first letter in the identifier and the first letter of each subsequent concatenated word are capitalized. You can use Pascal case for identifiers of three or more characters. For example:

BackColor

Camel case

The first letter of an identifier is lowercase and the first letter of each subsequent concatenated word is capitalized. For example:

backColor

Uppercase

All letters in the identifier are capitalized. Use this convention only for identifiers that consist of two or fewer letters. For example:

System.IO

System.Web.UI

You might also have to capitalize identifiers to maintain compatibility with existing, unmanaged symbol schemes, where all uppercase characters are often used for enumerations and constant values. In general, these symbols should not be visible outside of the assembly that uses them.

The following table summarizes the capitalization rules and provides examples for the different types of identifiers.

Identifier

Case

Example

Class

Pascal

AppDomain

Enum type

Pascal

ErrorLevel

Enum values

Pascal

FatalError

Event

Pascal

ValueChange

Exception class

Pascal

WebException

Note Always ends with the suffix Exception.

Read-only Static field

Pascal

RedValue

Interface

Pascal

IDisposable

Note Always begins with the prefix I.

Method

Pascal

ToString

Namespace

Pascal

System.Drawing

Parameter

Camel

typeName

Property

Pascal

BackColor

Protected instance field

Camel

redValue

Note Rarely used. A property is preferable to using a protected instance field.

Public instance field

Pascal

RedValue

Note Rarely used. A property is preferable to using a public instance field.