Guidance on File Naming

Consistently name your files and folders

The most important guidance is to keep study file/folder naming and organization internally consistent within your study.

• Establish naming and organization conventions for your study files and folders at the start of your study and consistently apply them throughout.

Universal conventions

• File and folder names should generally be informative/descriptive
  • Wherever possible name your files and folders in a way that will let a human user reasonably infer quite a lot about what the file holds without any further information
• File and folder names should be as brief as possible
• It is very helpful if file and folder names are all in lower case
• Don't use spaces or special characters
• Preferred separator is a dash ('-'), e.g., my-data-file-1

Special conventions

• If you have multiple files or folders of the same type, choose a naming convention that's descriptive, and not unmanageably long, and be consistent. For example:
  • One file per day, per cell, per protocol:
    • Potential convention: "day"-YYYY-MM-DD-"cell"-[0-9]-"protocol"-{short-protocol-description}
      Example filename: day-2023-03-17-cell-3-protocol-200ms-pulse.asc
  • One folder per experimental objective:
    • Potential convention: {cell-type}-{short-experimental-approach-description}-{short-experimental-objective-description}
      Example foldrer name: drg-current-clamp-effect-of-K1395R-on-drg-neuronal-excitability; drg-voltage-clamp-biophysical-properties-of-K1395R
• If you have files that are related, choose a naming convention that's descriptive, and not unmanageably long, and be consistent. For example:
  • A tabular/csv data file that has a data dictionary
    • Potential convention: The data dictionary for a data file has the same filename as the data file, with a "dd-" prefix
    • Example file name(s):
      • Data file name: my-data-1.csv
      • Corresponding data dictionary file name: dd-my-data-1.csv
  • Several experiments that each have an experimental protocol
    • Potential convention: The protocol of the experiment has the id of that experiment (from the experiment tracker) in the filename, with a "protocol-" prefix
    • Example file name(s):
      • Experiment id (from experiment tracker): exp-1
      • Corresponding protocol file name: protocol-exp-1.txt