Naming

Naming convention

Information

This information is part of the Modelica Standard Library maintained by the Modelica Association.

  1. Class and instance names are usually written in upper and lower case letters, e.g., "ElectricCurrent". An underscore may be used in names. However, it has to be taken into account that the last underscore in a name might indicate that the following characters are rendered as a subscript. Example: "pin_a" may be rendered as "pina".
  2. Class names start always with an upper case letter, with the exception of functions, that start with a lower case letter.
  3. Instance names, i.e., names of component instances and of variables (with the exception of constants), start usually with a lower case letter with only a few exceptions if this is common sense (such as T for a temperature variable).
  4. Constant names, i.e., names of variables declared with the "constant" prefix, follow the usual naming conventions (= upper and lower case letters) and start usually with an upper case letter, e.g., UniformGravity, SteadyState.
  5. The two connectors of a domain that have identical declarations and different icons are usually distinguished by _a, _b or _p, _n, e.g., Flange_a, Flange_b, HeatPort_a, HeatPort_b.
  6. A connector class has the instance name definition in the diagram layer and not in the icon layer.

Variable names

In the following table typical variable names are listed. This list should be completed.

Variables and names
Variable Quantity
a acceleration
A area
C capacitance
d damping, density, diameter
dp pressureDrop
e specificEntropy
E energy, entropy
eta efficiency
f force, frequency
G conductance
h height, specificEnthalpy
H enthalpy
HFlow enthalpyFlow
i current
J inertia
l length
L Inductance
m mass
M mutualInductance
mFlow massFlow
p pressure
P power
Q heat
Qflow heatFlow
r radius
R radius, resistance
t time
T temperature
tau torque
U internalEnergy
v electricPotential, specificVolume, velocity, voltage
V volume
w angularVelocity
X reactance
Z impedance