Adding naming conversion to the specification document.

When checking the variables in the language specification. I see these are written as snake case (foo_bar). But I see a few variables are written as a camel case (fooBar). Today I saw one repository whose WDL files with the variables, and task names are entirely written in camel case. I was shocked. Because I was thinking about reusing some of the parts.

I think it’s better to show the recommended naming conversion snake or camel case in the workflow name, task name, variable names and etc as well as other language specifications. What do you think?

E.g. https://github.com/openwdl/wdl/blob/main/versions/1.1/SPEC.md#struct-usage

workflow workflow_a {
  input {
    Experiment myExperiment
  }
  File firstFile = myExperiment.experimentFiles[0]
  String experimentName = myExperiment.experimentData["name"]
}

[jdidion]

Thanks for pointing this out. I will correct these examples in version 1.1.1.

[junaruga]

@DavyCats thanks for the references.

https://biowdl.github.io/styleGuidelines.html - 5. Naming conventions

• Tasks: UpperCamelCase
• Workflows: UpperCamelCase
• Structs: UpperCamelCase
• Calls: lowerCamelCase
• Variables: lowerCamelCase
• Inputs: see the notes below
• Imports: lowerCamelCase

As a reference, here are the Python PEP8’s naming conversions.

I am ok with the Workflow Task name as a Camel case. It is like Python’s class name.

In the WDL, I see that the attributes are the camel case. https://github.com/openwdl/wdl/blob/version-1.1.1/versions/1.1/SPEC.md#mandatory-runtime-attributes

• maxRetries
• returnCodes