1. Introduction

This document serves as the complete definition of Google's coding standards for source code in the Java™ Programming Language. Like other programming style guides, the issues covered span not only aesthetic issues of formatting, but other types of conventions or coding standards as well. However, this document focuses primarily on the hard-and-fast rules that we follow universally, and avoids giving advice that isn't clearly enforceable (whether by human or tool).

1.1 Terminology notes

In this document, unless otherwise clarified:

1. The term class is used inclusively to mean an "ordinary" class, enum class, interface or annotation type (@interface).

2. The term comment always refers to implementation comments. We do not use the phrase "documentation comments", instead using the common term "Javadoc."

Other "terminology notes" will appear occasionally throughout the document.