%0 Conference Paper %1 Caprile1999 %A Caprile, Bruno %A Tonella, Paolo %B Proc. Sixth Working Conf. on Reverse Engineering %D 1999 %I IEEE %K identifiers programming software %P 112--122 %R 10.1109/WCRE.1999.806952 %T Nomen est omen: analyzing the language of function identifiers %X The identifiers chosen by programmers as function names contain valuable information. They are often the starting point for program understanding activities, especially when high-level views, like the call graph, are available. In this paper, the lexical, syntactic and semantic structure of function identifiers is analyzed by means of a segmentation technique, a regular language and a conceptual classification. The application of these analyses to a database of procedural programs suggests some potential uses of the results, ranging from support for program understanding to the evolution towards standard and more maintainable forms of programs

@inproceedings{Caprile1999, abstract = {The identifiers chosen by programmers as function names contain valuable information. They are often the starting point for program understanding activities, especially when high-level views, like the call graph, are available. In this paper, the lexical, syntactic and semantic structure of function identifiers is analyzed by means of a segmentation technique, a regular language and a conceptual classification. The application of these analyses to a database of procedural programs suggests some potential uses of the results, ranging from support for program understanding to the evolution towards standard and more maintainable forms of programs}, added-at = {2009-12-15T20:41:26.000+0100}, author = {Caprile, Bruno and Tonella, Paolo}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/23a6f30c46b7a2588d8719ac83971b818/sjbutler}, booktitle = {Proc. Sixth Working Conf. on Reverse Engineering}, doi = {10.1109/WCRE.1999.806952}, interhash = {b93c1b01138cfea0f13ecde84b05791f}, intrahash = {3a6f30c46b7a2588d8719ac83971b818}, keywords = {identifiers programming software}, month = Oct, pages = {112--122}, publisher = {IEEE}, timestamp = {2010-01-10T12:11:17.000+0100}, title = {Nomen est omen: analyzing the language of function identifiers}, year = 1999 }