Good file names provide useful cues to the content, status and version of a file. Good file names helps in classifying and sorting files. 

Best practice is to:

  • Use meaningful but brief names
  • Use names to classify types of files
  • Avoid spaces, dots and special charaters (& or ! or ?)
  • Use underscores (_), hyphens (-) or initial caps (InitialCaps)
  • Include versioning within names where appropriate
  • Avoid very long file names
  • Recommended format for dates: YYYYMMDD

Some examples are:

  • [Project]-[Data type]-[Date in YYYY-MM-DDThh:mm:ss]_[Version number]
  • [Figure/Table number]-[Description]_[Version number]

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