Identifiers

Java Identifiers

Every Java variable needs to have a unique name.

We refer to these distinct names as identifiers.

Identifiers can be more descriptive names like age, sum, or totalVolume, or they can be simple names like x and y.

Note: To write comprehensible and maintainable code, it is advised to use descriptive names:

Example

				
					// Good
int minutesPerHour = 60;

// OK, but not so easy to understand what m actually is
int m = 60;

Here are the general guidelines for naming variables:

Names can contain letters, digits, underscores, and dollar signs
Names must begin with a letter
Names should start with a lowercase letter, and cannot contain whitespace
Names can also begin with $ and _ (but we will not use it in this tutorial)
Names are case-sensitive (“myVar” and “myvar” are different variables)
Reserved words (like Java keywords, such as int or boolean) cannot be used as names

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