An Approach For Synchronized Evolution Of Domain Models And Application Models In Software Product Line

Software product line (SPL) is the most successful and efficient systemic reuse method. The developing process of SPL covers two phrases, domain engineering and application engineering. Models are the most important artifacts produced and used during the two phrases. Domain engineering produces domain model, while application engineering produces application models. Domain model describe the commonality and variability of requirement and design decisions in SPL. Application models are produced by customizing and tailoring the domain model under specific requirements. Domain model and application models often evolve separately as they are usually developed and maintained by different teams. Once there’s no efficient mechanism to maintain the consistency, the deviations between the two-direction evolutions will expand gradually, and the SPL organization will lose the control on the product line gradually. Consequently, proposing synchronization mechanisms for different kinds of specific models is essential for the long-term success of SPL. However, there exist similarities among the structures and synchronization operations of different models, therefore developing synchronization infrastructure separately towards each model type may become a redundant and error-prone work.In this paper, we propose an approach to handle the type-specific model synchronization in a unified way. The kernel of the approach is a generic model-based framework called SPL-GSync. It includes a generic meta-model, which can provide generic description for different models in SPL, especially the variability part. Based on the meta-model and the typical synchronization and evolution scenarios of SPL, we have defined a set of synchronization rules, including forward propagation rules from domain model to application models and backward feedback rules from application models to domain model. Having implemented the rules and formalized the synchronization process, SPL-GSync can be effectively used to support type-specific model synchronization by developing bidirectional transformation between the specific-type model and its generic counterpart. In addition, we have also provided some typical rules to resolve conflicts during parallel updates. Finally, SPL-GSync is implemented as a prototype conforming to the C/S architecture and demonstration cases on SPL feature model and UML class diagram are carried out based on it.