I need to find a good and understandable naming-scheme for routines which deal with "value arrays" (I've written something similar to C++'s valarray
in Java, with some optimizations for primitive types in mind).
I know that the main categorization of routines is made between:
For performance reasons, I allow to define not only functions/methods which threat their parameters as readonly, but also functions/methods which may modify their first parameter.
So that one can not only do this... :
ValArrayInt a=..., b=...;
// "apply" treats "a" and "b" as readonly
ValArrayInt temp = ValArrays.apply(adder, a, b); // temp = a + b
a = temp;
... but also this:
ValArrayInt a=..., b=...;
// "apply" modifies "a"
a.apply(adder, b); // a += b
Please, suggest a naming scheme for these kinds of routines:
I have thought of something like ModifyingMethod, NonModifyingMethod, or similar, but I think those names are not straightforward enough, and too long.
I always use the word "update" in a method name to indicate that one or more of the parameters will be updated as a result. For ex:
updateClaimWithPolicyDetails(Claim c, PolicyCriteria pc, String identifier)
You can reasonably deduce that this method might update the Claim object. Then if a user wants to know more he can dig into the javadoc
For functions that return something and also update parameters something like "updateAndGet" could be used.
public Policy updateClaimAndGetPolicy(Claim c, PolicyCriteria pc, String identifier)
From this you can deduce that one is updating the Claim and returning a policy (the claim may be already updated for the policy).
If the word updateXXX is not used in a method then you should assume that all params are readonly. If you have two updatable parameters then you could say
updateClaimAndPolicyCriteria(Claim C, PolicyCriteria pc, String junkParam)
The above can tell you that both claim and policy criteria will be updated.