[Mono-dev] Parameter names and class status

[Leszek Ciesielski]

On 10/20/06, Leszek Ciesielski <skolima at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 10/20/06, Robert Jordan <robertj at gmx.net> wrote:
> > Leszek Ciesielski wrote:
> > > Hi,
> > >
> > > I took a quick glance at corcompare utility, and it seems to ignore
> > > parameter names. And those are also part of API contract (eg. Spring
> > > uses them in configuration files). So I made a quick update to the
> > > GetSignature method. Please review.
> >
> > Would you please post a link to the docs stating that parameter names
> > are part of the API contract?
>
>
> Hmm. It seemed obvious to me, although you are right to ask. I found this:
> http://www.gotdotnet.com/team/changeinfo/default.aspx (look under
> Binary Breaking Changes), but this is not a Microsoft/ECMA document.
> I'll look for something official.

OK. From ECMA CLI specification (Ecma-355), the DTD for assembly
information (7.1):
element Parameters is a required element of Member
element Parameters is a list of Parameter elements
element Parameter is:

<!ELEMENT Parameter (Attributes?)>
  <!ATTLIST Parameter
        Name NMTOKEN #REQUIRED
        Type CDATA #REQUIRED
>

MSDN guidelines for parameter design (
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms229015.aspx ):

"Do be consistent in naming parameters when overriding members or
implementing interface members.
Overrides should use the same parameter names. Overloads should use
the same parameter names as the declaring member. Interface
implementations should use the same names defined in the interface
member signature."

While the second excerpt is only a guideline, the first one is part of
the ECMA standard. And even if it was not, some existing programs (as
the aforementioned Spring.Net framework) rely on parameter names when
binding methods through reflection.