What does `m_` variable prefix mean?

Question

I often see m_ prefix used for variables (m_World,m_Sprites,...) in tutorials, examples and other code mainly related to game development.

Why do people add prefix m_ to variables?

Answer 1

This is typical programming practice for defining variables that are member variables. So when you're using them later, you don't need to see where they're defined to know their scope. This is also great if you already know the scope and you're using something like intelliSense, you can start with m_ and a list of all your member variables are shown. Part of Hungarian notation, see the part about scope in the examples here.

Answer 2

In Clean Code: A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship there is an explicit recommendation against the usage of this prefix:

You also don't need to prefix member variables with m_ anymore. Your classes and functions should be small enough that you don't need them.

There is also an example (C# code) of this:

Bad practice:

public class Part
{
    private String m_dsc; // The textual description

    void SetName(string name)
    {
        m_dsc = name;
    }
}

Good practice:

public class Part
{
    private String description;

    void SetDescription(string description)
    {
        this.description = description;
    }
}

We count with language constructs to refer to member variables in the case of explicitly ambiguity (i.e., description member and description parameter): this.

Answer 3

It is common practice in C++. This is because in C++ you can't have same name for the member function and member variable, and getter functions are often named without "get" prefix.

class Person
{
   public:
      std::string name() const;

   private:
      std::string name; // This would lead to a compilation error.
      std::string m_name; // OK.
};

---

main.cpp:9:19: error: duplicate member 'name'
      std::string name;
                  ^
main.cpp:6:19: note: previous declaration is here
      std::string name() const;
                  ^
1 error generated.

http://coliru.stacked-crooked.com/a/f38e7dbb047687ad

"m_" states for the "member". Prefix "_" is also common.

You shouldn't use it in programming languages that solve this problem by using different conventions/grammar.

Answer 4

The m_ prefix is often used for member variables - I think its main advantage is that it helps create a clear distinction between a public property and the private member variable backing it:

int m_something

public int Something => this.m_something; 

It can help to have a consistent naming convention for backing variables, and the m_ prefix is one way of doing that - one that works in case-insensitive languages.

How useful this is depends on the languages and the tools that you're using. Modern IDEs with strong refactor tools and intellisense have less need for conventions like this, and it's certainly not the only way of doing this, but it's worth being aware of the practice in any case.

Answer 5

As stated in the other answers, m_ prefix is used to indicate that a variable is a class member. This is different from Hungarian notation because it doesn't indicate the type of the variable but its context.

I use m_ in C++ but not in some other languages where 'this' or 'self' is compulsory. I don't like to see 'this->' used with C++ because it clutters the code.

Another answer says m_dsc is "bad practice" and 'description;' is "good practice" but this is a red herring because the problem there is the abbreviation.

Another answer says typing this pops up IntelliSense but any good IDE will have a hotkey to pop up IntelliSense for the current class members.

Answer 6

Lockheed Martin uses a 3-prefix naming scheme which was wonderful to work with, especially when reading others' code.

   Scope          Reference Type(*Case-by-Case)   Type

   member   m     pointer p                       integer n
   argument a     reference r                     short   n
   local    l                                     float   f
                                                  double  f
                                                  boolean b

So...

int A::methodCall(float af_Argument1, int* apn_Arg2)
{
    lpn_Temp = apn_Arg2;
    mpf_Oops = lpn_Temp;  // Here I can see I made a mistake, I should not assign an int* to a float*
}

Take it for what's it worth.

Answer 7

As stated in many other responses, m_ is a prefix that denotes member variables. It is/was commonly used in the C++ world and propagated to other languages too, including Java.

In a modern IDE it is completely redundant as the syntax highlighting makes it evident which variables are local and which ones are members. However, by the time syntax highlighting appeared in the late 90s, the convention had been around for many years and was firmly set (at least in the C++ world).

I do not know which tutorials you are referring to, but I will guess that they are using the convention due to one of two factors:

• They are C++ tutorials, written by people used to the m_ convention, and/or...
• They write code in plain (monospaced) text, without syntax highlighting, so the m_ convention is useful to make the examples clearer.

Answer 8

Others have mentioned that it means a class member. Qt is a popular c++ Framework that uses this notation so alot of C++ GUI tutorial use m_. You can see almost all their examples use m_ for class members. Personally, I use m_ as it is shorter than this-> and feels compact.

Answer 9

To complete the current answers and as the question is not language specific, some C-project use the prefix m_ to define global variables that are specific to a file - and g_ for global variables that have a scoped larger than the file they are defined.
In this case global variables defined with prefix m_ should be defined as static.

See EDK2 (a UEFI Open-Source implementation) coding convention for an example of project using this convention.

Answer 10

One argument that I haven't seen yet is that a prefix such as m_ can be used to prevent name clashing with #define'd macro's.

Regex search for #define [a-z][A-Za-z0-9_]*[^(] in /usr/include/term.h from curses/ncurses.