Ask HN: Naming convention for a percentage stored as a value from 0 to 1

2 points by escot 1 year ago | 4 comments
Say you’re storing a percentage like “state tax”. You store it as a decimal: 0.4 means 40%. What do you call this type when you need to name a db column or a variable? Technically it is not a percent until you * 100.

“Decimal fraction” seems most correct but is very verbose. No one is writing taxRateDecimalFraction as a var name.

  • warrenm 1 year ago
    how about `taxrate`?

    Or don't store it as a decimal between 0 and 1 - but as a value between 0 and 100 (with possible decimal points, of course), and just call it `taxpct`?

    • PaulHoule 1 year ago
      Just "fraction".
      • bell-cot 1 year ago
        "rate", or "tax_rate", or "state_rate", or "state_tax_rate".
        • warrenm 1 year ago
          >No one is writing taxRateDecimalFraction as a var name.

          Wait til you see Java or Hungarian Notation