Topic: Which is better? (Page 1 of 1)

I was looking at some URLs on some Google results and saw that some used dashes while some used underscores and it got me wondering...

In filenames and URLs, which is better for word separators: dashes "-" or underscores "_"?

Is it just preference or is there a technical reason why one is better than the other? I've been using underscores as my standard ever since I started in web design.

Which one do you use and why?

underscores are hard to detect when the text is underlined, as is often the case with links

None of my URLs have spaces in them, so I guess I bypassed this problem entirely as far as URLs go. For files on my computer (Word, etc.), I use underscores or just plain spaces, though. Hyphens* are for compound words or breaking words at the end of a line. Grumble has a point about underscores not being easily detectable when underlined (since that's technically what the underscore is: an underline), though. If I were faced with a situation where I did have URLs that needed spaces, I'd probably just eliminate the spaces altogether and stick the words together.

* (Those are hyphens you're seeing in the results, by the way, not dashes--or, if we want to be really pedantic, we can call them by their proper name: the hyphen-minus)


___________________________
Suho: www.liminality.org | Cell 270 | Sig Rotator | the Fellowship of Sup

I tend to prefer underscore as they seem less intrusive. The fact that they blend with the underline of hyperlinks is a plus for the legibility IMO.

emdash, endash, hyphen... so many names for a few pixels difference in display width

When I first read this thread title, I thought it'd be a return of the amusing time-waster, 'which is better?' Anyone remember that? The person starting the thread says, "so, which is better, X or Y?" and whoever answered had to propose a new 'which is better' question. That filled in a few minutes a day, which is nothing to be sneezed at.


Justice 4 Pat Richard

Ok, so it's more of a preference thing?
If that's the case, I'll just stick with underscores like I have been.

I suppose for URLs, if you see gaps (underlined), you can just presume they're underscores. I prefer underscores between words in a URL or a file name, and use hyphens grammatically.

Indeed, since spaces are encoded as "%20" in URIs, you can pretty much assume all gaps are underscores in underlined URIs.

--
var Liorean = {
abode: "http://liorean.web-graphics.com/",
profile: "http://codingforums.com/member.php?u=5798"};

This is assuming it's a URL that's being displayed, and not some text to represent it as is so often used.


Justice 4 Pat Richard

(Edited by Skaarjj on 04-29-2008 12:07)

quote:

---

Skaarjj said:

emdash, endash, hyphen... so many names for a few pixels difference in display width

---

Must... resist.. typography rant!


___________________________
Suho: www.liminality.org | Cell 270 | Sig Rotator | the Fellowship of Sup

Hee! Damn, I was hoping for one.


Justice 4 Pat Richard

My order of priority:
avoid
space (when im in windows otherwise skip)
full stop
underscore
hyphen