Case

A multi-word identifier is a string composed of one or more words. Representing words as a single identifier involves joining words together, typically in a manner than makes the individual words distinguishable from one another. But the identifier is only a string, and doesn’t contain any metadata about the words used. For this reason, we can call a multi-word identifier just a string.

When representing words as a single identifier, each word is formatted with a certain word case, then joined together with a delimiter. This pattern along with the a delimeter is what we define as a string case, or simply, a case.

$$\text{case} \coloneqq (\text{pattern}, \text{delimiter})$$

This definition aligns with colloquial uses of variable cases in programming languages. For example, snake case is the lower pattern with underscore delimiter. For a list of names given to particular pattern-delimiter pairs, see cases.