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Next: <a rel="next" accesskey="n" href="Typesetting-existing-music.html#Typesetting-existing-music">Typesetting existing music</a>,
Up: <a rel="up" accesskey="u" href="Suggestions-for-writing-LilyPond-input-files.html#Suggestions-for-writing-LilyPond-input-files">Suggestions for writing LilyPond input files</a>
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<h4 class="subsection">5.1.1 General suggestions</h4>
<p>Here are a few suggestions that can help you to avoid or fix
problems:
<ul>
<li><strong>Include </strong><code>\version</code><strong> numbers in every file</strong>. Note that all
templates contain <code>\version</code> information. We
highly recommend that you always include the <code>\version</code>, no matter
how small your file is. Speaking from personal experience, it's
quite frustrating to try to remember which version of LilyPond you were
using a few years ago. <samp><span class="command">convert-ly</span></samp> requires you to declare
which version of LilyPond you used.
<li><strong>Include checks</strong>: <a name="index-Bar-and-bar-number-checks-439"></a><a href="../lilypond/Bar-and-bar-number-checks.html#Bar-and-bar-number-checks">Bar and bar number checks</a>,
<a name="index-Octave-checks-440"></a><a href="../lilypond/Octave-checks.html#Octave-checks">Octave checks</a>. If you include checks every so often, then
if you make a mistake, you can pinpoint it quicker. How often is
‘every so often’? It depends on the complexity of the music.
For very simple music, perhaps just once or twice. For very
complex music, perhaps every bar.
<li><strong>One bar per line of text</strong>. If there is anything complicated,
either in the music
itself or in the output you desire, it's often good to write only one bar
per line. Saving screen space by cramming eight bars per line just isn't
worth it if you have to ‘debug’ your input files.
<li><strong>Comment your input files</strong>. Use either bar numbers
(every so often) or
references to musical themes (‘second theme in violins,’ ‘fourth
variation,’ etc.). You may not need comments when you're writing the piece
for the first time, but if you want to go back to change something two or
three years later, or if you pass the source over to a friend, it will
be much more
challenging to determine your intentions or how your file is structured if
you didn't comment the file.
<li><strong>Indent your braces</strong>. A lot of problems are caused by an
imbalance
in the number of <code>{</code> and <code>}</code>.
<li><strong>Explicitly add durations</strong> at the beginnings of sections
and variables. If you specify <code>c4 d e</code> at the beginning of a
phrase (instead of just <code>c d e</code>) you can save yourself some
problems if you rearrange your music later.
<li><strong>Separate tweaks</strong> from music definitions. See
<a href="Saving-typing-with-variables-and-functions.html#Saving-typing-with-variables-and-functions">Saving typing with variables and functions</a>, and
<a href="Style-sheets.html#Style-sheets">Style sheets</a>.
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This page is for LilyPond-2.11.57 (development-branch).
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Your <a href="http://lilypond.org/web/devel/participating/documentation-adding">suggestions for the documentation</a> are welcome.
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