Model Based On Field Tracking Software Product Line Development

Software product line (SPL) is a domain-oriented development approach based on the comprehensive, systematic software reuse. The domain engineering and the application engineering are the two main stages in SPL. The former is the phase responsible for the core assets construction, and the latter is the phase to derive the applications based on the core assets. In the development and maintenance processes of any software system, the traceability describes the relationships between the artefacts generated from the analysis, design and implementation phases. Thus the representation, acquisition and maintenance for the traceability are always regarded as an important problem. As the development of SPL must guarantee the coordination and harmonization between the applications as well as between the applications and the domain assets, the traceability becomes more important in the context. The traceability in SPL spans the different development stages on the time dimension (such as the basic analysis, design and implementation). It also covers the trace links between the developed artefacts in the core assets and the products on the space dimension. Thus, establishing and maintaining the traceability can effectively support the application derivation based on the core assets and the SPL evolution process, as well as ensuring the unification and consistency of the whole product line.The research of the thesis focuses on the description and construction of the traceability between the artefacts as well as between the main development activities in the SPL domain engineering. It also involves the application derivation and incremental evolution based on the trace links. The goal of the thesis is to propose a model-based representation method for the artefacts generated from the main phases of the domain engineering such as the domain analysis, design and implementation. The corresponding mapping patterns and the reference transformation rules are also brought forward on the meta-model level. Therefore, the method can support the domain engineering process as well as the corresponding reuse-based application engineering and SPL evolution.First, this thesis presents a conceptual framework for SPL traceability, which defines the abstract representations of the SPL in different development phases, as well as the relations between them. Based on it, a multi level domain traceability meta-model for SPL is proposed by specifying certain modeling methods and techniques to each of the abstract level. This meta-model defines the sub-model structures related to the domain analysis, domain design and domain implementation phases. On the other hand, it also establishes the conceptual traceability links between the elements of the sub-models. Therefore, the result of a successful domain engineering activity is a concrete domain traceability model.The thesis is followed by the research on the modeling techniques and the model transformation method or guiding principles belonging to the main sub-phases of the domain engineering. In the domain analysis phase, the thesis adopts the goal modeling technique which extends i-Star to reflect the user's intentions as well as the source of domain requirements. At the same time, the ontology-based feature modeling framework is introduced to describe the SPL domain requirements focusing on the variability. Then the mapping pattern between a goal and a feature helps to guide the goal-feature transformation process, which includes the part of the automated algorithm. In the domain design phase, this thesis adopts the domain architecture with extension of aspectual mechanism to support the various types of component interaction caused by the variability. On the other hand, the role model is introduced as an intermediate level between the feature model and the architecture to divide the feature-driven architecture design process into the feature-based role modeling and the role model-based architecture design. In the domain implementation phase, the conceptual component in the architecture has a directly relation to the concrete component in the program level, thus the development of components can follow the component specifications directly. In addition, a same SPL example is shown with the related tool FdDAT during the explanation of the techniques in domain analysis and design phases, to describe the modeling and transformation processes.The concrete traceability model contains the concrete trace links between artefacts. Thus the thesis will also study on the application derivation and the incremental evolution processes based on the existing traceability. As for the former, the domain architecture is configured according to the application requirements, then the different assembling mechanism is used to implement the corresponding component interaction patterns based on the trace link between conceptual components and the concrete components, at last the application conforming to the application requirements is derived. Furthermore, the method includes an architecture design and component assembling tool FdSPLC. As for the latter, this thesis will propose a feature-driven incremental generalization method for SPL, which includes a set of basic generalization scenarios on the feature model as well as their composition. Then the automated program evolution will be performed according to the concrete trace links between the features and the implementation units...