Recommending verbs for rename method using association rule mining

Abstract

Abstract-An identifier is one of the crucial elements for program readability. Method names in an object-oriented program are important identifiers because method names are used for understanding the behavior of the methods without reading a part of the program. It is well-known that each method name should consist of a verb and objects according to general guidelines. However, it is not easy to name methods consistently since each of the developers may have a different understanding of the verbs and objects used in the method names. As a first step to enable developers to name methods consistently and easily, we focus on the verbs used in the method names.In this paper, we present a technique to recommend candidate verbs for a method name so that developers can use consistent verbs for method names. Given a method, we recommend a list of verbs used in many other methods similar to the given method, by using association rules. We have extracted association rules from 445 OSS projects and applied these rules to two projects. As a result, the extracted rules could recommend the current verbs in the top 10 candidates for 60.6% of the methods covered by our approach. Furthermore, we have identified four meaningful groups of rules for verb recommendation.

On the generation, structure, and semantics of grammar patterns in source code identifiers

“…There are several recent approaches to appraising identifier names for variables, functions, and classes. Kashiwabara et al [13] use association rule mining to identify verbs that might be good candidates for use in method names. Abebe [16] uses an ontology that models the word relationships within a piece of software.…”

Improvement in Method Verb Recommendation Technique Using Association Rule Mining

“…We regarded a verb already used in a target method name as the correct verb for the target method. This assumption is the same as in [3], [5]. We have evaluated the accuracy of our approach to answer the following research question: "Can the new technique recommend more correct verbs than the previous technique?"…”

“…Yu et al proposed a technique to recommend a verb for a method name using machine learning for automatic naming [3]. In our previous study, we proposed a technique to recommend candidate verbs for a method name so that developers can find a better verb for a method [5]. We extracted the relationship between verbs used in method names and identifiers used in method bodies from existing source files by using association rule mining [6].…”

Pluggable Controllers and Nano-Patterns in Java with Lola

“…Høst and Østvold proposed automatic tool [95] to suggest proper names. Kashiwabara et al, in different works, presented techniques to identify candidate verbs for methods [96,97]. There were some attempts to use recurring structure for software engineering purposes.…”