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Reasoning about product-line evolution using complex feature model differences

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Abstract

Features define common and variable parts of the members of a (software) product line. Feature models are used to specify the set of all valid feature combinations. Feature models not only enjoy an intuitive tree-like graphical syntax, but also a precise formal semantics, which can be denoted as propositional formulae over Boolean feature variables. A product line usually constitutes a long-term investment and, therefore, has to undergo continuous evolution to meet ever-changing requirements. First of all, product-line evolution leads to changes of the feature model due to its central role in the product-line paradigm. As a result, product-line engineers are often faced with the problems that (1) feature models are changed in an ad-hoc manner without proper documentation, and (2) the semantic impact of feature diagram changes is unclear. In this article, we propose a comprehensive approach to tackle both challenges. For (1), our approach compares the old and new version of the diagram representation of a feature model and specifies the changes using complex edit operations on feature diagrams. In this way, feature model changes are automatically detected and formally documented. For (2), we propose an approach for reasoning about the semantic impact of diagram changes. We present a set of edit operations on feature diagrams, where complex operations are primarily derived from evolution scenarios observed in a real-world case study, i.e., a product line from the automation engineering domain. We evaluated our approach to demonstrate its applicability with respect to the case study, as well as its scalability concerning experimental data sets.

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Notes

  1. The notion of an “asymmetric” difference is due to the fact that \({\varDelta }(v_1,v_2)\) specifies document changes only in one direction, i.e., from \(v_1\) to \(v_2\). In order to specify the changes from \(v_2\) back to \(v_1\), a different asymmetric difference is required.

  2. The effect on the internal run-time representation of the feature diagram is more complex and explained in Sect. 4.

  3. http://pi.informatik.uni-siegen.de/Projekte/SiLift/asejournal2014.php.

  4. Please note that for those combinations marked with “*”, exceptional cases may arise, where the resulting characterization differs from the intuitive characterization. In particular, a specialization edit operation followed by generalization edit operation (and vice versa), as well as two subsequent arbitrary edit operations may result in an arbitrary edit, a generalization, a specialization, or even a refactoring. In our practical experiments conducted so far, these hypothetical cases did not occur (cf. Sect. 7.1).

  5. http://pi.informatik.uni-siegen.de/Projekte/SiLift/asejournal2014.php.

  6. http://pi.informatik.uni-siegen.de/CVSM/.

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Acknowledgments

This work was partially supported by the DFG (German Research Foundation) under the Priority Programme SPP 1593: Design For Future—Managed Software Evolution.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Real-Time Systems Group, TU Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

    Johannes Bürdek, Malte Lochau & Andy Schürr

  2. Software Engineering Group, University of Siegen, Siegen, Germany

    Timo Kehrer, Dennis Reuling & Udo Kelter

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  1. Johannes Bürdek
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  2. Timo Kehrer
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Correspondence to Timo Kehrer.

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Bürdek, J., Kehrer, T., Lochau, M. et al. Reasoning about product-line evolution using complex feature model differences. Autom Softw Eng 23, 687–733 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10515-015-0185-3

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