Introduction

The goal of this set of coding standards that can be automatically checked is to help you write consistent, clean, understandable and maintainable m-code. The resulting code will be more readable for both yourself and others. These rules are no strict rules that must be followed at all cost. They are simply there to help you write m-code well and you can deviate from them as you please.

Automatic compliance checking

Most of the rules described here can be checked using Code Checker for MATLAB by MonkeyProof Solutions. The checkable rules are indicated by this logo cc4m_logo_inline at the top. These rules are configured in the predefined MonkeyProofSolutions configurations set available with the tool. For instructions on how to check your code against a coding standard, see the video below. The steps are also described below the video.

You can check your code for compliance with the rules described here as follows:

Install Code Checker for MATLAB. If you have not purchased the tool yet, you can do so here. Alternatively, you could request a free trial license there.
Open Code Checker for MATLAB in one of two ways:
- Click the shortcut created at the top of the screen next to the documentation search bar: .
- Run monkeyproof.cc4m.start() from the command window.
Select whether you want to check one or more files, all files in a folder, or all files in a MATLAB Project.
Select what files/folder/project to check.
Further customization is available, for example checking a folder including or excluding all subfolders.
Click the Run button at the bottom to start checking your code.

Structure of this document

The coding standards and rules are grouped under specific categories to help keep things organized:

Naming conventions: Rules in this chapter describe how variables, functions etc. can be named in a consistent and insightful manner.
Layout & comments: This chapter contains rules to help improve readability of your code for yourself and for others. There are rules on whitespace, comments and more.
Statements & expressions: The rules and coding standards in this chapter are about how to use constructs such as if/else blocks, what built-in functions or keywords to avoid, how to best structure your statements etc.
Higher level rules: This chapter contains (among others) coding standards on higher-level objects such as functions or files.

Guideline template

Every guideline is structured as follows:

Guideline name


ID	A unique guideline identifier.
Title	Brief description of the guideline.
Priority	Priority of the guideline can be one of Mandatory, Strongly recommended and Recommended. Exactly what each of these means for your case is up to you to decide.
Severity level	Severity level of the guideline can be in the range from 1 to 10. The most important ones are of severity level 1 and next levels are reserved for more pedantic issues. Each of the levels is described below.
Description	A more elaborate description of the guideline. Can include the reasoning behind the guideline: how does your code improve when applying the guideline?
Rationale	One or multiple words describing what the guideline is about. Examples: Readability, Stability.

Avoid:

One or more code examples to avoid using.

Instead use:

The example(s) above improved by complying with the guideline.

Severity levels

The following definition of the severity levels is used as a guide to make it easier to group the different rules and coding standards.

Level 1 - Programming error (no discussion)
Level 2 - Most likely a programming error (there are exceptions but in more than 50% of the cases this is a programming error)
Level 3 - Accidents waiting to happen (there is no error at the moment but if somebody makes a change the house of cards might collapse)
Level 4 - Important design issues
Level 5 - Less important design issues
Level 6 - Portability related rules, maintenance related issues
Level 7 - Performance related rules
Level 8 - Rules that deal with periphery such as comments, harmless preprocessor issues, etc.
Level 9 - Naming conventions related rules
Level 10 - Style related issue

Each rule in this coding standard has a severity level attached to it. These severity levels are set in the Code Checker for MATLAB and one can configure for which severity levels to check. The severity levels are related to the severity levels of Tiobe's TICS tooling.

MonkeyProof Solutions Coding standards