Empirical Study of Fault-Prone Method's Name and Implementation: Analysis on Three Prefixes-Get, Set and Be

This paper focuses on the relationship between Java method's first word (prefix) and its implementation, for predicting fault-prone method. As a pilot study of the focused way of analysis, this paper analyzes three major prefixes of methods' names: "get", "set" and "be." The empirical study in this paper collects many data of methods' names and implementation features and analyzes abnormality of relationship between methods' names and their implementation features. Then, the study examines the relationship between a method's abnormality and its fault-proneness in eight open source software products. The empirical results prove the usefulness of focusing on the gap between methods' names and their implementation features in predicting fault-prone methods.