Coding Specifications
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
SPIDERtel is currently working on a formal coding specifications document
that defines all elements of PHP, HTML, ASP, and JavaScript proper and
standard coding rules.  These rules pertain to the way in which indentation,
variable naming, and source module layout should be done.

For now, please excuse the brievity of this document, spelling errors, 
grammer, etc.  I'm hoping the code examples will speak for themselves.

PHP
----
The dGrid object gives an excellent example of how I will expect PHP code 
to look.  All code should be indented with tabs ONLY.  Please do not use
spaces for indents at any level.  The simple reason for this is that all
programmers have different feelings about the number of spaces that a single
tab should represent.  If tab characters are used, then any developer can
set up their tabbing to 2 or 4 or 8 characters wide and regardless of who
writes the module, the tabs will look correct within each programmer's
editor.

All braces should be placed on a line by themselves.  For example, we prefer

if ($var == 3)
{
	// Do multiple things
}

To

if ($var == 3) {
	// Do multiple things
}

If the conditional block contains only a single statement, then we do NOT use
braces at all, i.e.

if ($var == 3)
	$var == 4;

This should be done for PHP and JavaScript both.

When it comes to string concatenation, please use the '.' string concatenator
instead of inserting the variables inside of a string:

$val = "text";
$str = "This is some: " . $val;

Instead of:

$str = "This is some: $val";

The reason is that using the dot concatenator is much faster than including the
variable within the string.

When coding PHP, please use consistent indentations:

foreach ($ary as $key => $val)
	if ($key == "number")
		if ($val == "0")
			print $key . " => " . $val . "\n";

Statements such as "if" and "for" are NOT functions and therefore should NOT be
placed immediately adjacent to their (), i.e.

if ($val == 3)

The following is NOT correct:

if($val == 3)

If we're calling a function, then the parens should be placed adjacent to the
function name:

function my_func($val = "")
{
	return $val;
}

Calling this function:

$var = my_func(3);

This is NOT proper:

$var = my_func (3);

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
JavaScript

All of the placement rules and indenting rules do NOT apply to JavaScript.
The reason that we throw these out is to save space and bytes when delivering
javascript to a web browser.  However, just because we do not have the same
requirements, we do not expect the code to be messy.  An example of good 
code in JavaScript is as follows:


<script type="text/javascript" language="javascript">
var selObj = null;
// Retrieves an object by id
function gO(x){
 return document.getElementById(x);
}
// Fills the <select> object
function fillSelObj(sO){
 var i = 0;
 var ary = {1:'Kansas',2:'Missouri',3:'Iowa',3:'New York'};
 if(sO != null)
  selObj = sO;
 if(selObj == null)
  selObj = gO("state_select");
 selObj.length = 0;
 for (var a in ary){
  selObj.options[i] = new Option();
  selObj.options[i].value = a;
  selObj.options[i++].text = ary[a];
 }  
}
</script>

Note that we use spaces to indent with - not a problem in JavaScript.  Note that we
allow the conditional statement to be immediately adjacent to the 'if' statement.
All of these things are done in the interest of saving space - but in the process
we do not sacrifice readability by using no indent at all.  Variable names are kept
short, but not to single character names.  Quality still needs to exist, even though
we have sacrificed some level of readability.