single_letter_ident

[yoav-lavi]

What it does

I'd like to suggest a restriction, single_letter_ident, which forbids identifiers that are a single letter

Advantage

This would allow projects that want to enforce longer identifier names (for readability) to do so without breaking existing projects

Drawbacks

None that I can think of, as it's a restriction which needs to be opted into

Example

impl fmt::Display for MyStruct {
    fn fmt(&self, f: &mut fmt::Formatter<'_>) -> fmt::Result {
        f.write_str(self.as_ref())
    }
}

Could be written as:

impl fmt::Display for MyStruct {
    fn fmt(&self, formatter: &mut fmt::Formatter<'_>) -> fmt::Result {
        formatter.write_str(self.as_ref())
    }
}

This would also forbid the following:

struct A {}

enum B {}

trait C {}

fn d() {}

const E: &str = "some const";

static F: &str = "some const";

TBD for enum members / struct fields / assoc. consts / assoc. types, where this makes a bit more sense, e.g.:

struct Point {
  x: usize,
  y: usize,
}

Generics (e.g. T) should be allowed to remain single letter idents (IMO, can also be debated)

Alternatively, could be a min_ident_len lint which has configuration (since 2 letter idents might also be undesirable)

The lint could also optionally (or by configuration) whitelist specific identifiers which are common, e.g. n for number functions, i, x, y, etc. This could be narrowed to only allow these if they're of specific types to avoid confusion and still restrict the same identifiers for arbitrary cases. TBD whether this is desirable.

[Centri3]

@rustbot claim