C++ Coding Standards for the AMP Project

This document provides an initial starting point to define the C++ coding standards used by the AMP nuclear fuel performance integrated code project and a part of AMP's software development process. This document draws from the experiences, and documentation (1), of the developers of the Marmot Project at Los Alamos National Laboratory. Much of the software in AMP will be written in C++. The power of C++ can be abused easily, resulting in code that is difficult to understand and maintain. This document gives the practices that should be followed on the AMP project for all new code that is written. The intent is not to be onerous but to ensure that the code can be readily understood by the entire code team and serve as a basis for collectively defining a set of coding standards for use in future development efforts. At the end of the AMP development in fiscal year (FY) 2010, all developers will have experience with the benefits, restrictions, and limitations of the standards described and will collectively define a set of standards for future software development. External libraries that AMP uses do not have to meet these requirements, although we encourage external developers to follow these practices. For any code of which AMP takes ownership, the project will decide on any changes on a case-by-case basis. The practices that we are using in the AMP project have been in use in the Denovo project (2) for several years. The practices build on those given in References (3-5); the practices given in these references should also be followed. Some of the practices given in this document can also be found in (6).