Consistency in Nomenclature

Although not required, you should match or closely match the LIBNAME, pathname, and additional optional pathnames for consistency. The following examples illustrate a domain declaration that is easy to follow, and a domain declaration that is more difficult to follow.

In the following example of intuitive names in a libnames.parm file, the declared domain name, pathname, data pathname, and index pathname are spds123,

LIBNAME=SPDS123 PATHNAME=c:\data\spds123
  OPTIONS="
    DATAPATH=('d:\data\spds123'
              'e:\data\spds123')
    INDEXPATH=('f:\idx\spds123')";

In this example of non-intuitive names in a libnames.parm file, each pathname is different. The structure is technically valid, but unnecessarily complex.

LIBNAME=BADEXAMPL PATHNAME=c:\data\myspds
  OPTIONS="
    DATAPATH=('d:\data\datapath1'
              'e:\data\datapath2')
    INDEXPATH=('f:\idx\index')" ;

The directories that are specified in domain pathname, data path, and index path statements should correspond to one and only one domain. In the first example, the pathname, data path, and index path specifications point to separate, unique paths that end with the directory name spds123, which corresponds to the domain spds123. If a domain spds456 exists, it should have its own unique domain pathname, data path, and index path specifications. Also, it should not share a specified path with spds123 or with any other domain.