File naming
A file name is the principal identifier of a file. Therefore, good file names should:
- provide useful cues to content, status and version
- uniquely identify a file
- help to classify and sorting files
As such, file names that reflect the content of the file well facilitate searching, discovering and understanding of the data.
Best practices
When creating a file name try to employ these best practices:
- Give a unique name
- Use elements essential to identify the file
- Avoid long names, remove unnecessary elements
- For dates, use ISO8601 standard (i.e. YYYYMMDD). This will keep the files sorted chronologically
- For versioning via filename, use ascending, decimal version numbers
- Try to only use alphanumerical characters (A-Z, a-z, 0-9) and the underscore _ instead of a space
- Do not use special characters like \ / : * ? " < > | ! % & - ; = () + , .
- Do not use spaces. Use an underscore ("_") for separation.
- Do not alter or remove the extension of a file (e.g. .txt, .sav, .mp4, .docx)
- Be consistent in how you build up names
Examples
Some examples of good file names are:
- fg1_pat_20160309.rtf
Interview transcript of the first focus group with patients that took place on March 9th 2016. - int042_AD_20150605.docx
Interview with participant 42, interviewed by Arthur Dent on June 5th 2015. - FMHSurvey_Procedures_00_04
Version 4 of the survey procedures for the Flemish Mental Health survey