A bottom up SPL design method

Software Product Lines (SPL) ensure predictive and organized software reuse. In practice, SPL are often set up after several similar product variants have been in use. This practical fact prompted a quest for bottom-up processes that start from existing the source of product variants to identify a product line. This later is then described with a feature model that essentially specifies the components of the SPL and their variability within the product family. However, so far proposed notations for feature models do not provide for a clear understanding of the SPL nor do they guide in their maintenance and future evolution. These shortages motivated us to propose a bottom-up approach that extracts from the source code of product variants, the SPL design enriched with information extracted from the feature model. The enriched SPL is modeled with a UML profile that assists in the comprehension, reuse as well as evolution of the SPL.