This is related to this question but not quite the same. BTW, I’m not a native English speaker.
I keep having a hard time choosing a proper name for collections – Lets say that we have a collection of item s and that each item has a name. How will we call the collection of names such that the collection’s name will be the most understandable under standard naming conventions?
var itemNames = GetItemNames(); // Might be interpreted as a single item with many names
var itemsNames = GetItemsNames(); // No ambiguity but doesn't look like proper English
var itemsName = GetItemsName(); // Also sounds strange, and doesn't seem to fit in e.g. a loop:
foreach( itemName in itemsName){...}
As native English speakers, how would you name your collections, and how would you expect them to be named?
0
What about GetNamesOfItems?
Otherwise, GetItemNames can be a good alternative, if the documentation is clear about what is being returned. This also depends on the items itself:
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GetPersonNamesis not clear, since a person can have multiple names, -
GetProductNamesis more explicit in a context where a product can have one and one only name.
GetItemsNames looks indeed quite strange.
GetItemsName is simply incorrect: we expect as a result a common name shared by multiple items, not a sequence of names.
As an example, take a method which returns the prices of products in a category:
public Money[] NameHere(CategoryId categoryId) { ... }
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GetProductPricescould have been interpreted in two ways: either it returns the prices of products, or several prices of a product, one price per currency. In practice, given that the parameter of the method is a category, and not a single product, it is obvious that the first alternative is true. -
GetPricesOfProductsappears the most clear alternative. There are zero or more products in a category, and for each, we return its price. The only issue is the case when there are actually several prices per product, one price per currency. -
GetProductsPriceslooks strange, but is still clear. -
GetProductsPricelooks totally wrong: we expect such method to returnMoney, notMoney[].
Also note that in the example above, it may be even better to slightly change the signature itself:
public Tuple(ProductId, Money)[] GetPricesOfProducts(CategoryId categoryId) { ... }
appears easier to understand and removes the ambiguity described in the second point.
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In English, this would be “get the items’ names”. If you want to think of an “item name” as an independent thing, then “get the item names” would also be acceptable. Here I would have used GetItemNames() without a second thought, so I would recommend either that or GetNames(items) or items.GetNames().