# A Pattern-based Approach to Detect and Improve Non-descriptive Test Names

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.05359 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.05359/

## Key facts

- Cited by 1 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 11 May 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 1 of 1)

- [An Ensemble Approach for Annotating Source Code Identifiers with Part-of-speech Tags](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2109.00629/) (2021)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Unit tests are an important artifact that supports the software development process in several ways. For example, when a test fails, its name can provide the first step towards understanding the purpose of the test. Unfortunately, unit tests often lack descriptive names. In this paper, we propose a new, pattern-based approach that can help developers improve the quality of test names of JUnit tests by making them more descriptive. It does this by detecting non-descriptive test names and in some cases, providing additional information about how the name can be improved. Our approach was assessed using an empirical evaluation on 34352 JUnit tests. The results of the evaluation show that the approach is feasible, accurate, and useful at discriminating descriptive and non-descriptive names with a 95% true-positive rate.