Style question -- plural of class name?

[Steven D'Aprano]

On Wed, 08 May 2013 16:20:48 -0400, Roy Smith wrote:

> FooEntry is a class.  How would you describe a list of these in a
> docstring?


Which language are you writing your docstrings in? Obey the normal rules 
of spelling, grammar and punctuation for your language, which I assume is 
English.


> "A list of FooEntries"

Perfectly acceptable.


> "A list of FooEntrys"

There is no standard variant or dialect of English (British English, 
American English, etc.) that pluralises Entry as Entrys, so that would be 
"absolutely not".


> "A list of FooEntry's"

"Here come's an S! Quick, jam on an apostrophe!"

This is called the grocer's apostrophe, and is universally held in 
contempt no matter what variant of English you write in. Don't do this.

The only acceptable use of an apostrophe to make a plural is if the thing 
being pluralised is a single letter. E.g. one a, two a's.

 
> "A list of FooEntry instances"

This is also acceptable, although a little wordy. Do you write "a list of 
strings" or "a list of str instances"?


> The first one certainly sounds the best, but it seems wierd to change
> the spelling of the class name to make it plural.

No weirder (note spelling) than changing any other noun. Whether you 
change "int" to "ints" or FooEntry" to "FooEntries", you're still 
changing it. That's how you make it plural.


-- 
Steven