Approach to modelling feature variability and dependencies in software product lines

Product line software engineering empowers high-level constructive software reuse by exploiting commonality and managing variability among the member products in a product family. A new feature-oriented method has been proposed to model feature variability and dependencies in software product lines. To conquer the complexity of the modelling, the modelling is decomposed into two views - a feature tree view and a dependency view. The main focus of this work is on the dependency view. Feature dependencies have very strong implications on the configurations of member products in a product line. Currently existing feature-oriented approaches do not facilitate feature dependency modelling in a scalable way. A matrix-based approach is developed to maintain the information about feature dependencies, and to accommodate the generation of feature dependency diagrams. Instead of using an overall feature dependency diagram, the authors decompose an overall diagram into a set of individual feature dependency diagrams that is capable of facilitating more effective configurations for the member products in a product line. The approach is scalable for constantly evolved product lines and supports easy detection of conflicting feature dependencies.