Style and Naming Conventions

In general, the Ignition platform follows the recommendations of the Oracle Code Conventions for the Java Programming Language. Most interfaces and classes in the Ignition platform are named using standard Java casing.

However, due to the platform’s evolution, module developers may encounter naming patterns and identifiers that are specific to Ignition or reflect legacy systems.

This page highlights common naming conventions and identifiers that module developers are likely to encounter.

Modern Naming Conventions

Resources

Resources are a core concept used to represent project configuration and content. Resources are typically identified using:

• A module ID, such as com.mycompany.mymodule.
• A resource type ID, such as view, script, or named-query.

Together, these form a ResourceType, which uniquely identifies a type of resource within the platform. When defining resources:

• Keep module IDs consistent and stable
• Use descriptive, lowercase identifiers for resource types

Historical Path Identifiers

When working with historian systems, you may encounter structured path identifiers such as:

• histprov: Historian Provider
• sys: Gateway system name
• prov: Tag Provider
• tag: Tag path

These components are used to define fully qualified historical paths. Multiple valid formats may exist for the same path depending on context, and these formats are not always interchangeable.

Path Construction

Tag paths and historical paths are string-based identifiers composed of multiple parts. These paths are often constructed dynamically in scripts and APIs. Because they are string-based, they must be formatted precisely. Small differences in naming or structure can result in invalid or incorrect references.

Provider Terminology

The term provider is used throughout Ignition to represent pluggable data sources or services. Common examples include Tag Providers and Historian Providers. While the meaning varies by subsystem, the naming pattern is consistent across the platform.

Qualified Identifiers

The term qualified is commonly used to indicate that a path or value includes all required identifying components, such as the Gateway, provider, and resource identifiers.

Historian Scripting

Historian functionality is exposed through the system.historian.* namespace. Some legacy functionality may still exist under other namespaces, but new development should utilize the historian-specific APIs.

Legacy Naming Conventions

The following naming conventions persist for historical reasons and may still appear in APIs or internal classes.

• factorysql (fsql) or factorypmi (fpmi): These refer to legacy products that preceded the SQL Bridge and Vision modules. These names still appear in package structures and identifiers.

• SR prefix: During early development, Ignition was referred to as ScadaRail. Some classes retain the SR prefix as a result.