File Naming Conventions

Three principles:

• Machine readable
• Human Readable
• Plays well with default ordering

Conventions

• - (dash) separate words in concept
• _ (underscore) separate units of meta-data
• pad numbers to allow for default file sort
• use YYYY-MM-DD or YYYYMMDD format for dates (ISO 8601)
• put dates first to help with default ordering (where appropriate)
• prefer lower case to mixed case
• prefer upper case to mixed case
• prefer consistent case

Examples

Good

2017-08-18_article01.md
2017-08-18_article02.md
2017-08-18_article10.md
2016-01-08_roy_wg.vcf.gz
2016-02-14_priss_wg.vcf.gz
2016-06-12_zora_wg.vcf.gz
2017-04-10_leon_wg.vcf.gz

Bad

acticle1.md
article2.md
article10.md
priss2142015.vcf.gz
leon17410.vcf.gz
zora16612.vcf.gz
roy1618.vcf.gz
priss16214.vcf.gz

References

• naming things by Jenny Bryan

2017-08-18