An Object-Based Feature Modeling Method For Software Product Lines

By now,significant achievements have been made respectively on the extension of basic structure and semantics of the feature model,the variabilities management as well as the legacy-systems-based domain feature model recovery.However,there are still some problems to be solved as follows:firstly,the modeling perspective difference betwwen domain analysis phase and domain design phase results in the difficulties to achieve a smooth transition from domain feature model to domain design model;secondly,due to the lack of an effective mapping mechanism to manage the mapping between domain feature model and the models of domain sample systems the correctness verifying work of domain feature model is not easy to be carried out.Considering these two problems existing in feature modeling method,we put forward an object-based feature modeling(OBFM)method in this paper and then taking advantage of the OBFM,we propose a domain-feature-model-based delta modeling solution for domain design.In the OBFM method,a stepwise perfecting process is put forward innovatively,and two new model elements that are "object-based descriptions of features"and "object-oriented explanations of feature relations" are introduced to the domain feature model.These two new model elements are used to represent the perspective of developers and to be the breakthrough points to establish the mapping between domain feature model and object model.On the basis of the mapping betwwen domain feature model and object model,a sample-system-based domain feature model validation method is presented.Meanwhile,in order to better implement the mapping between the working models,this paper refines the decomposition relationship,which is refined into:object-compose decomposition,object-included decomposition and attribute-included decomposition.And 9 rules are presented in this paper to ensure the reliability and structural rationality characteristics of the domain feature model.Furthermore,applying this modeling method in"online trading" domain,we have given the examples of the critical steps and processes.Then,we analyzes the advantages of the final domain feature model compared to the initial one,thus,indicating the effectiveness of the method.